Biodiversity faces a 'perfect storm'

More human activity, less funds may mean more hidden species dying out
Grace Chua Straits Times 4 Jun 11;

NEARLY a third of all amphibian species could be lurking, as yet undiscovered, in high-biodiversity areas, conservation researchers reckon.

That is more than 3,000 species of amphibians, as well as some 160 species of land mammals which are not yet known to science.

But they are likely to be in more danger of extinction from habitat loss, small habitat and population sizes, and other human activity than those which have been discovered.

The work was carried out by a team of scientists from Singapore, the United States and Mexico. Their findings were published online last month by the Proceedings Of The Royal Society B, a top biology research journal.

Lead author Giam Xingli, 29, explained that undiscovered species may provide important ecosystem services that are yet unknown.

For example, some frogs produce anti-microbial agents which can lead to the development of better anti-microbial drugs for humans, or they can help control insects that carry disease.

The Princeton University doctoral student and National University of Singapore (NUS) alumnus told The Straits Times: 'While it is not possible to know every single species, we need to know as many species as possible so we can start to think about how to conserve them.

'If we don't do that, many species may go extinct without us knowing about them.'

The research focused on amphibians and land mammals as the researchers, who include NUS conservation ecologists Navjot Sodhi and Brett Scheffers and Stanford University ecologist Paul Ehrlich, have more experience with these groups of animals.

In subsequent PhD work, however, Mr Giam plans to estimate undescribed fish diversity in South-east Asia, and study the impact of plantation agriculture on freshwater fish ecology.

The researchers based their calculations on a mathematical model that included known species, when species were discovered and where.

The more scientific exploration in an area, the lower the proportion of species in that area left undiscovered.

At the same time, more human activity such as agriculture meant more species could have gone extinct without anyone noticing.

As it turns out, the tropical forests of South and Central America, Africa and South and South-east Asia are probably home to the greatest proportion of undescribed amphibian and land-mammal species. Tropical forests are very rich in biodiversity to begin with, and are harder to explore for science or development.

But there are some noteworthy patterns. For example, the study revealed that more than half of the amphibians in Australasian tropical moist forests, such as the Sulawesi Islands, the Moluccas and Papua, remain to be discovered.

'The percentage figure is greater than areas commonly thought to be storehouses for undescribed biodiversity such as the Neotropics,' Mr Giam noted, perhaps because the Neotropics (South and Central America) are better explored by humans and have more human activity that could lead to extinctions.

The paper's authors bemoaned the fact that 'the 'perfect storm' for biodiversity loss is upon us'. Universities and funding agencies, they said, are devoting fewer resources and less funds to finding and describing new species, while at the same time, high-biodiversity natural areas are 'being altered in ways that will drive many of these species to extinction'.

They recommended taking steps to protect remote, unexplored tropical areas to preserve the hidden biodiversity that survives there.

'Today's 'hidden' biodiversity need not vanish without a trace. It is up to us to try to prevent such a tragedy,' they wrote.