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Article Excerpt
First noticed in 1990, amphibians in Costa Rica are disappearing at an accelerating rate. It was the decline of the country's trademark golden frog that first made news, but further study showed that the Monteverde harlequin frog, Atelopus, disappeared in the 1980s. Since that time, at least 110 species of the brightly colored animals that once lived in the tropics of Central and South America have ceased to exist, leaving behind a number of hypotheses of why this has happened. A new study provides the first clear proof that global warming is causing outbreaks of an infectious disease responsible for these losses.
The study, published in the Jan. 12 issue of the journal Nature, reveals how warming may alter the dynamics of a skin fungus fatal to the animals. "Disease is the bullet that's killing the frogs, but climate change is pulling the trigger," said the study's lead scientist, J. Alan Pounds. "Global warming is wreaking havoc on amphibians and soon will cause staggering losses of biodiversity." Pounds is affiliated with the Tropical Science Center's Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa...
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More articles from NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs
GUATEMALANS: HOW THEY SEE THEMSELVES AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT., January 19, 2006
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