Jeffrey Dawson

Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust · Field Programmes

From June, 2007, to February, 2009, the Waria Valley Community Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods Project (WVCP) completed an inventory survey of the birds of the lower Waria Valley, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. Four land use types -- agricultural, secondary forest edge, primary forest edge and primary forest -- were surveyed using Mack...

Invasive alien species are one of the primary threats to native biodiversity on islands worldwide. Consequently, eradicating invasive species from islands has become a mainstream conservation practice. Deciding which islands have the highest priority for eradication is of strategic importance to allocate limited resources to achieve maximum conserv...

Global amphibian declines are one of the biggest challenges currently facing the conservation community, and captive breeding is one way to address this crisis. Using information from the International Species Information System zoo network, we examined trends in global zoo amphibian holdings across species, zoo region, and species geographical reg...

The global amphibian crisis and current un-mitigatable threats make ex situ programmes a crucial complementary action for the conservation of many amphibians. Zoos and aquariums are some of the most important and influential groups of institutions to undertake this yet the proportion of globally threatened amphibians in zoos is just 23.9% compared...

In the largely deforested areas of Madagascar, small forest fragments remain as last refuges for amphibian diversity. Isolated populations of the Critically Endangered Anodonthyla vallani and Anilany helenae persist in the fragmented forest of Ambohitantely but little information is available to inform their management and any conservation interven...

The Madagascan endemic subfamily Cophylinae in the family Microhylidae, is an example of a taxonomic group for which much is still to be discovered. Indeed, the cophyline frogs present a large portion of Madagascar’s cryptic and microendemic amphibian diversity, yet they remain understudied. A new red-bellied species of the microhylid frog genus St...

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is becoming an increasingly used tool for monitoring cryptic species within terrestrial and aquatic systems. We present the first method for extracting water from tree holes for eDNA studies of tree-dwelling frogs, and the first use of eDNA for amphibian monitoring in Madagascar. This pilot study expands on a previously dev...

With 40% of global amphibian species threatened with extinction, captive breeding programmes are an increasingly important conservation tool. The highest priority species occur in tropical countries, which presents a number of challenges. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 practitioners in Latin America, Africa and Asia to investigate...

Using DNA barcoding, we present the first inventory of amphibians present in one of Madagascar’s smallest protected areas, Ankafobe. This small area represents some of the last remaining central high plateau forest in Madagascar. However, with just 27.89 ha of forest split into two fragments, Ankafobe is highly threatened by yearly grassland fires....

The Critically Endangered mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax), found on the Caribbean islands of Dominica and Montserrat, underwent one of the fastest declines observed in any vertebrate species due to the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. A remnant population of c.130 individuals survives on Dominica but the Montserrat population...

Invasive alien species are one of the primary threats to native biodiversity on islands worldwide, and their expansion continues due to global trade and travel. Preventing the arrival and establishment of highly successful invasive species through rigorous biosecurity is known to be more economic than the removal of these species once they have est...

It is vital to provide appropriate nutrition to maintain healthy populations in conservation breeding programs. Knowledge of the wild diet of a species can be used to inform captive diet formulation. The nutritional content of the wild diet of the critically endangered mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax) is unknown, like that of most amphi...

A bat on the brink? A range-wide survey of the Critically Endangered Livingstone's fruit bat Pteropus livingstonii—CORRIGENDUM - Volume 51 Issue 4 - Bronwen M. Daniel, Kathleen E. Green, Hugh Doulton, Daniel Mohamed Salim, Ishaka Said, Michael Hudson, Jeff S. Dawson, Richard P. Young, Amelaid Houmadi

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used t...

The Livingstone's fruit bat Pteropus livingstonii is endemic to the small islands of Anjouan and Mohéli in the Comoros archipelago, Indian Ocean. The species is under threat from anthropogenic pressure on the little that remains of its forest habitat, now restricted to the islands’ upper elevations and steepest slopes. We report the results of the...

A key action identified through the 2006 Amphibian Conservation Action Plan (ACAP) was the establishment of ex-situ captive programmes for those species most at risk from extinction, where threats could not be mitigated. The global zoo and aquarium community represent one of the most influential and important groups to undertake and contribute to s...

The new national action plan for the amphibians of Madagascar 2016-2020 (English Version)

Le nouveau plan d'action national pour les amphibiens de Madagascar 2016-2020 (version française)

The conservation of Madagascar amphibians has become object of study and application in the last twenty years, and concomitant to the presence and action of several herpetologists, who take this discipline to Madagascar, and highlighted the importance of preparing a serious action plan. Until then, taxonomy and survey works were the main activities...

Local stakeholders at the important but vulnerable Centre Hills on Montserrat consider that the continued presence of feral livestock (particularly goats and pigs) may lead to widespread replacement of the reserve’s native vegetation by invasive alien trees (Java plum and guava), and consequent negative impacts on native animal species. Since 2009,...

NEWS FROM THE AMPHIBIAN COMMUNITY T he frogs of Madagascar constitute one of the richest groups of amphibians in the World with more than 290 described species (1), though some estimate there may be more than 400, with several new species being described annually. Of these around 99% of species and 88% of genera are endemic to Madagas-car and its i...

From June 2007 to February 2009 the Waria Valley Community Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods Project completed a mist net survey of bats in the lower Waria Valley, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The Waria Valley is located on the north coast of the Morobe Province ~190 km south-east of Lae, and still has large tracts of intact lowland hi...

The Montagne des Français is a limestone massif in northern Madagascar, which is characterised by a wide range of biotopes including xerophytic karst, gallery forest, dry western forest, grassland and caves. It is situated only 12 km from the regional capital, Antsiranana, and few, if any areas of primary forest remain. In the first comprehensive s...

During a nine week period, we studied the abundance of the gecko Phelsuma madagascariensis grandis, using visual encounter surveys conducted along 75 transects within each of three habitat types in a semi-humid dry deciduous forest in the north of Madagascar. We observed 91 P. m. grandis during our study. Capture rates in village orchards were high...

We surveyed the calcareous massif Montagne des Francais in northern Madagascar for amphibians and reptiles. We recorded nine amphibian and 52 reptile species by direct sampling and pitfall trapping in the first detailed survey to focus on this area. Consequently 78.7% of the species found were new records for Montagne des Francais. The majority of...