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Global exposure risk of frogs to increasing environmental dryness

Nature Climate Change volume 14, pages 1314–1322 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Compared with the risks associated with climate warming and extremes, the risks of climate-induced drying to animal species remain understudied. This is particularly true for water-sensitive groups, such as anurans (frogs and toads), whose long-term survival must be considered in the context of both environmental changes and species sensitivity. Here, we mapped global areas where anurans will face increasing water limitations, analysed ecotype sensitivity to water loss and modelled behavioural activity impacts under future climate change scenarios. Predictions indicate that 6.6–33.6% of anuran habitats will become arid like by 2080–2100, with 15.4–36.1% exposed to worsening drought, under an intermediate- and high-emission scenario, respectively. Arid conditions are expected to double water loss rates, and combined drought and warming will double reductions in anuran activity compared with warming impacts alone by 2080–2100. These findings underscore the pervasive synergistic threat of warming and environmental drying to anurans.

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Fig. 1: Relationship between the spatial distribution of anuran species and degree of climate dryness.
Fig. 2: Assemblage-level risk due to multiple scenarios of increasing drought events.
Fig. 3: Variation in EWL for a typical 8.7 g frog.
Fig. 4: Total hours for potential activity and change in activity under different climate conditions for a hypothetical 8.7 g frog in Queensland, Australia.
Fig. 5: Change in activity under different climate conditions, for a hypothetical 8.7 g frog in four representative biomes, is expected to increase with environmental drying.

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Data availability

Climate data were sourced from a public database published in Abatzoglou et al.87 and Zhao and Dai2. The species richness database was sourced from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species platform91 (https://www.iucnredlist.org/resources/spatial-data-download). Phylogenetic data were sourced from Jetz and Pyron97. Water loss and uptake data used to reproduce the study are available via GitHub at https://github.com/nicholaswunz/global-frog-drought and Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13743578 (ref. 113).

Code availability

Codes to reproduce the study are available via GitHub at https://github.com/nicholaswunz/global-frog-drought and Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13743578 (ref. 113).

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Acknowledgements

This paper is dedicated to the late Phillip J. Bishop (1957–2021), who was at the forefront of amphibian conservation research in the southern hemisphere. He dedicated more than 30 years to amphibian conservation, and this study was inspired partly by his research and his passion for amphibians demonstrated at the Word Congress of Herpetology in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 2020. This work was supported by the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (no. RVO: 68081766) to U.E.U., the São Paulo Research Foundation—FAPESP (nos. 10/20061-6, 14/05624-5, 17/10338-0 and 19/04637-0 to R.P.B. and 14/16320-7 to C.A.N.) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (incentive funding no. 28442 to S.C.-T).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Nicholas C. Wu

  2. Departmento de Fisiologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Rafael Parelli Bovo & Carlos A. Navas

  3. Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, University of California Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    Rafael Parelli Bovo

  4. Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Biology, Brno, Czech Republic

    Urtzi Enriquez-Urzelai

  5. Department of Botany and Zoology & School for Climate Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

    Susana Clusella-Trullas

  6. School of BioSciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Michael R. Kearney

  7. Edward Bass Distinguished Scholar, YIBS/Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Carlos A. Navas

  8. School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Jacinta D. Kong

  9. Department of Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Jacinta D. Kong

Authors
  1. Nicholas C. Wu
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  2. Rafael Parelli Bovo
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  3. Urtzi Enriquez-Urzelai
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  4. Susana Clusella-Trullas
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  5. Michael R. Kearney
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  6. Carlos A. Navas
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  7. Jacinta D. Kong
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Contributions

N.C.W. and C.A.N. conceived the study. N.C.W. and J.D.K. compiled the data. R.P.B., C.A.N. and S.C.-T. provided additional data for 39 species. M.R.K. and U.E.U. developed the model simulations. N.C.W. analysed the data, produced the figures and wrote the initial draft. All authors contributed to revisions.

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Correspondence to Nicholas C. Wu.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Risk to increasing drought intensity for anurans by 2080–2100.

(a) Change in the Palmer Drought Severity Index (ΔPDSI) under a + 2 °C warming scenario (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 2–4.5; SPP2–4.5) by 2080–2100 relative to the current scenario (1970–1999). A decrease ΔPDSI indicates higher drought occurrences, while an increase ΔPDSI indicates more extreme wetness. (b) Percentage of anuran species occupancy in each PDSI category grid cell (0.5°) under a + 2 °C warming scenario, where 21% of species are in areas that are at risk of increasing drought. (c) Change in ΔPDSI under a + 4 °C warming scenario (SPP5–8.5). (d) Percentage of anuran species occupancy in each PDSI category grid cell (0.5°) under a + 4 °C warming scenario, where 38% of species are in areas that are at risk of increasing drought.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Risk to increasing drought frequency for anurans by 2080–2100.

(a) Change in the drought frequency (ΔPDSI[frequency]) under a + 2 °C warming scenario (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 2–4.5; SPP2–4.5) by 2080–2100 relative to the current scenario (1970–1999). ΔPDSI[frequency] was defined as change in monthly PDSI below −2 (moderate to extreme drought) within a 20 year period. (b) Percentage of anuran species occupancy in each frequency category grid cell (0.5°) under a + 2 °C warming scenario. (c) Change in the ΔPDSI[frequency] under a + 4 °C warming scenario (SPP5–8.5). (d) Percentage of anuran species occupancy in each frequency category grid cell (0.5°) under a + 4 °C warming scenario.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Risk to increasing drought duration for anurans by 2080–2100.

(a) Change in the drought duration (ΔPDSI[duration]) under a + 2 °C warming scenario (Shared Socioeconomic Pathways 2–4.5; SPP2–4.5) by 2080–2100 relative to the current scenario (1970–1999). ΔPDSI[duration] was defined as consecutive months under moderate to extreme drought (PDSI < −2) within a 20 year period. (b) Percentage of anuran species occupancy in each duration category grid cell (0.5°) under a + 2 °C warming scenario. (c) Change in the ΔPDSI[duration] under a + 4 °C warming scenario (SPP5–8.5). (d) Percentage of anuran species occupancy in each duration category grid cell (0.5°) under a + 4 °C warming scenario.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–13, methods and Tables 1–7.

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Web page supplementary information with code used to reproduce the study.

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Wu, N.C., Bovo, R.P., Enriquez-Urzelai, U. et al. Global exposure risk of frogs to increasing environmental dryness. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14, 1314–1322 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02167-z

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