Silent Springs Why Are All the Frogs “Croaking” 英文参考文献.docVIP

BookReview/ScienceintheMedia SilentSprings:WhyAreAlltheFrogs‘‘Croaking’’? MatthewC.Fisher* DepartmentofInfectiousDiseaseEpidemiology,FacultyofMedicine,ImperialCollegeLondon,London,UnitedKingdom Amphibians became the most ancient class of land-dwelling vertebrates when, 360millionyearsago,primitiveamphibia such as Ichthyostega first hauled themselves out of their aquatic environment. Since that ancient event, the amphibia have ramifiedintoover6,300speciesofbreath- takingdiversity:theyinhabitallcontinents (excepting Antarctica), from deserts to altitudes of over 5,300metres, manufac- ture an astoundingly complex arsenal of chemicals, and undergo complex meta- morphic transitions that bridge aquatic andterrestrialecosystems. chaptersthatsetoutthekeyeventsthatled to a realisation that amphibian declines werenotonlyreal,butwerealsooccurring globally. The authors, James P. Collins andMarthaL.Crump,arekeyleadersin thisfieldwhohavelongbeenresearching amphibiandeclines.Thebookpicksupat theFirstWorldCongressofHerpetology, held in Canterbury in 1989. It was here that researchers began to piece their separate stories together to reveal a unifying theme: Amphibian species were going extinct at rates that far exceeded background extinction, and were above those seen in other classes of vertebrates. Although a broad consensus was reached thattheseglobalamphibiandeclineswere real,theirproximatedriverswereentirely unclearandoftenhotlydebated.Extinction in Our Times sets out to document this complex field of research in which com- peting scientific agendas, industrial inter- ests, governmental policy, and conserva- Scientistshavelongbeencaptivatedby the success and rich diversity of amphib- ians, but over the past 30 years, their wonder has turned to horror. Jaime Bosch’s experience was typical. During the1990s,theSpanishresearcherusedto climbtheSierradeGuadarramaeachyear to study the mating choruses of midwife toads for his PhD. This species of Collins JP, Crump ML (2009)E