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Long-Term Data for Endemic Frog Genera Reveal Potential Conservation Crisis in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia

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Long-Term Data for Endemic Frog Genera Reveal Potential Conservation Crisis in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia Long-term data for endemic frog genera reveal potential conservation crisis in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia D AVID J. GOWER,ROMAN K. ABERRA,SILVIA S CHWALLER,MALCOLM J. LARGEN B EN C OLLEN,STEPHEN S PAWLS,MICHELE M ENEGON,BREDA M. ZIMKUS R AFAEL DE S Á ,ABEBE A. MENGISTU,FIKIRTE G EBRESENBET,ROBIN D. MOORE S AMY A. SABER and S IMON P. LOADER Abstract Populations of many frogs have declined alar- 1995. The other three species have also declined, at least mingly in recent years, placing nearly one third of the locally. E. baleensis appears to have been extirpated at its . 6,000 species under threat of extinction. Declines have type locality and at the same site B. hillmani has declined. been attributed largely to habitat loss, environmental These declines are in association with substantial habitat degradation and/or infectious diseases such as chytridio- degradation caused by a growing human population. mycosis. Many frogs undergo dramatic natural population Chytrid fungus has been found on several frog species fluctuations such that long-term data are required to in Bale, although no dead or moribund frogs have been determine population trends without undue influence encountered. These results expose an urgent need for more of stochastic factors. We present long-term quantitative amphibian surveys in the Bale Mountains. Additionally, we data (individuals encountered per person hour of search- argue that detrimental human exploitation must be halted ing) for four monotypic frog genera endemic to an immediately in at least some parts of the Harenna Forest if a Afromontane region of exceptional importance but growing conservation crisis is to be averted. conservation concern: one endemic to the Ethiopian Keywords Africa, Afromontane, amphibians, Bale highlands (Spinophrynoides osgoodi) and three endemic to Mountains National Park, chytrid, decline, Ethiopia, the Bale Mountains (Altiphrynoides malcolmi, Balebreviceps management hillmani, Ericabatrachus baleensis), collected during 15 field trips to the Bale Mountains between 1971 and 2009. Only a This paper contains supplementary material that can be single confirmed sighting of S. osgoodi has been made since found online at http://journals.cambridge.org DAVID J. GOWER (Corresponding author) Department of Zoology, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK. E-mail [email protected] ROMAN K. ABERRA Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Introduction SILVIA SCHWALLER,ABEBE A. MENGISTU* and SIMON P. LOADER University of Basel, Institute of Biogeography, Department of Environmental Sciences, Basel, opulations of many frogs have declined alarmingly in Switzerland Precent years, placing nearly one third of the . 6,000 2010 MALCOLM J. LARGEN Formby, UK species under threat of extinction (IUCN, ). Declines BEN COLLEN Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK have been attributed largely to habitat loss, environmental degradation and/or infectious diseases such as chytridio- STEPHEN SPAWLS Spixworth, Norwich, UK mycosis (Stuart et al., 2008; Kilpatrick et al., 2010). Many MICHELE MENEGON Sezione di Zoologia dei Vertebrati, Museo Tridentino di fl Scienze Naturali, Trento, Italy frogs undergo dramatic natural population uctuations (e.g. Pechmann et al., 1991; Semlitsch et al., 1996) such that long- BREDA M. ZIMKUS Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA term data are required to determine population trends fl RAFAEL DE SÁ Department of Biology, University of Richmond, Richmond, without undue in uence of stochastic factors (e.g. Meyer Virginia, USA et al., 1998; Marsh, 2001; Green, 2003). Long-term quan- FIKIRTE GEBRESENBET and SAMY A. SABER† Department of Biology, Addis Ababa titative data are generally lacking for the vast majority of University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia frog species, particularly in the tropics (Adeba et al., 2010; ROBIN D. MOORE Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, USA Largen & Spawls, 2010). For Africa this is exacerbated by a *Also at: Department of Biology, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, general relative scarcity of attention to conservation biology Ethiopia † research despite many threats to its globally important biota Also at: Zoology Department, Faculty of Science, Al-Azhar University, Assiut, 2007 Egypt (Pimm, ). Here we present long-term quantitative data Received 1 April 2011. Revision requested 16 May 2011. for four frog genera endemic to an Afromontane region of Accepted 26 July 2011. exceptional importance but growing conservation concern. © 2013 Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 47(1), 59–69 doi:10.1017/S0030605311001426 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 26 Sep 2021 at 07:34:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605311001426 60 D. J. Gower et al. woodland and into medium altitude rainforest (Friis, 1986; 1993 1994 Robe Miehe & Miehe, , ). This is one of the largest natural Dinsho areas of forest remaining in Ethiopia. Towards the west, A1 north and east the Sanetti Plateau falls away more gently and change in vegetation is less abrupt, with Afroalpine Goba grasslands giving way to heather moorlands and, below 3 000 A2 c. , m, Hagenia forest. 2 200 2 A2–A5 A substantial area (c. , km ) of the region is covered 1971 B1 by the Bale Mountains National Park, established in but A3 B2 A4 not yet formally gazetted by the Ethiopian government. The A5 Park is the most important conservation area in Ethiopia (Frankfurt Zoological Society, 2007), one of the most import- E1 E2 Rira C1 2010 34 E3 ant in Africa (Largen & Spawls, ), and one of C2 F1 D1 D2 Conservation International global biodiversity hotspots. The Park is a BirdLife International Important Bird Area, G1 Legend G2 and on the Tentative List to qualify as a World Heritage Site. Road Many people live and exploit natural resources within H1 Altitude H2 4,300 m the Park, and their activities are the primary threat to the 2007 1,500 m native biodiversity (Frankfurt Zoological Society, ). Conservation efforts are currently focused on habitats, and on flagship threatened bird and mammal species, which are N concomitantly the taxa that are best known scientifically. To Dola Mena For example, the Park is the focus of the Ethiopian Wolf 0 3.75 7.5 15 (Canis simensis) Conservation Programme (e.g. Sillero- km Zubiri et al., 1997; Atickem et al., 2009), and the main FIG. 1 Map of the Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia remaining stronghold of the mountain nyala Tragelaphus showing Park boundary, local villages and towns (squares), and buxtoni (Malcolm & Evangelista, 2005) and Bale monkey – sampling localities A H (dots) referred to in the text and Chlorocebus djamdjamensis (Mekonnen, 2008; Mekonnen 1 2 5 Table . The dots labelled A to A are based on coordinates et al., 2010). The Park is important as a water source for c. 12 given in error by Grandison (1978) and Largen (2001); these localities are actually close to the Goba–Rira road, approximately million people and of outstanding social, scenic and cultural 1988 2007 within the area marked by the ellipse labelled A2–A5. Rira, in the value (Hillman, ; Frankfurt Zoological Society, ). centre of the Park, is at 6.771°N, 39.725°E. A management plan for the Park was published recently (Frankfurt Zoological Society, 2007). About 15 amphibian species (all anurans) have been The Bale Mountains lie in southern Ethiopia, east of the reported from the Bale Mountains, including 10 endemics Rift Valley (Fig. 1). The Mountains are a high (up to nearly (Largen, 2001; Largen & Spawls, 2010). The Bale Mountains 4,400 m) and extensive massif with rich biodiversity, National Park is an Alliance for Zero Extinction site, including many unique, rare, spectacular and threatened partly because of its endemic amphibians (Alliance for Zero taxa. Hillman (1986: 255) considered the Mountains ‘a centre Extinction, 2010). Given the Park’s importance for their of faunal endemicity, probably with the highest rate of conservation we focus here on four monotypic frog genera: animal endemicity for a terrestrial habitat anywhere in all endemic to Ethiopia and three endemic to the Bale the world’. The region incorporates the largest single area Mountains. 2 (. 4,000 km ) in Africa over 3,000 m altitude, and is a crucially important reservoir of globally threatened Previous work up to 1986 Afromontane and Afroalpine habitats (Largen & Spawls, 2010). Although there is a long history of human habitation in the The highest part of the region, the Sanetti Plateau and area, the Bale Mountains remained largely unexplored associated peaks, comprises Afroalpine grasslands with a scientifically until the middle of the 20th century. The highly endemic biota. To the south, the Sanetti Plateau Chicago Field Museum’s W.H. Osgood collected some am- terminates at the Harenna escarpment that drops from phibians and reptiles in 1926–1927. Partly in association with 3,200 to 2,000 min8 km. This escarpment exhibits a other British colleagues, M.J. Largen carried out extensive dramatic vegetation zonation from the plateau grasslands collections between 1971 and 1975. Early expeditions were through low heather scrub, giant heather (Erica spp.) forest, centred around Dinsho/Dinshu and the northern slopes Hagenia, bamboo and Podocarpus forest, high altitude below the Sanetti Plateau. In 1983 it become feasible to reach © 2013 Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 47(1), 59–69 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.19, on 26 Sep 2021 at 07:34:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605311001426 Endemic frogs in the Bale Mountains 61 (a)(a) (b)(b) (c)(c) (d)(d) PLATE 1 The four endemic Ethiopian monotypic frog genera studied: (a) Spinophrynoides osgoodi, (b) Altiphrynoides malcolmi, (c) Ericabatrachus baleensis, and (d) Balebreviceps hillmani. S. osgoodi is endemic to the highlands of Ethiopia; the others are endemic to the Bale Mountains.
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