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Three aspects of the biology of anurans indicate that climate change could have a significant impact on these vertebrates: a) they are ectotherms and ambient temperatures can strongly influence their activity, b) a permeable skin requires them to have regular access to sources of moisture, and c) most species require free water for larval development. Research from the northern hemisphere suggests climatic changes have already impacted amphibians through changes in breeding phenology, loss of breeding sites, changes in moisture regimes and a possible increased impact of disease. Such impacts have yet to be tested for or detected in Australia's species, which are adapted to different environments and have different ancestries. Species of most concern are narrow range, montane species with unique breeding strategies and that occupy consistently moist environments. Recent predictive modeling however, has suggested that species with much broader distributions could experience significant range reductions by 2070, mainly as a result of a reduction in seasonal rainfall patterns. Changes in the frequency and regularity of rainfall may result in detrimental shifts in pond hydroperiod and this could negatively impact many species. Further research is required to determine just which species are at significant risk from predicted climate changes and generate discussion on appropriate adaptive strategies.

Anstis, M. 2002. Tadpoles of South-eastern Australia: A Guide with Keys. Reed New Holland, Sydney.
Beebee. T. J. C. 1995. Amphibian breeding and climate. Nature 374: 219-220.
Berger, L., Speare, R., Daszak, P., Green, D. E., Cunningham, A. A., Goggin, C. L., Slocombe, R., Ragan, M. A., Hyatt, A. D., McDonald, K. R., Hines, H. B., Lips, K. R., Marantelli, G. & Parkes, H. 1998. Chytridiomycosis causes amphibian mortality associated with population declines in the rain forests of Australia and Central America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95: 9031-9036.
Berger, L. 2001. Diseases in Australian Frogs. PhD thesis, James Cook University, Townsville.
Blaustein, A. R., Belden, L. K., Olson, D. H., Green, D. M., Root, T. L. and Kiesecker, J. M. 2001. Amphibian breeding and climate change. Conservation Biology 15: 1804-1809.
Brattstrom, B. H. 1963. A preliminary review of the thermal requirements of amphibians. Ecology 44: 238-255.
Brattstrom, B. H. 1970. Thermal acclimation in Australian amphibians. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 35: 69-103.
Brereton, R., Bennett, S., Mansergh, I. 1995. Enhanced greenhouse climate change and its potential effect on selected fauna of South-Eastern Australia: a trend analysis. Biological Conservation 72: 339-354.
Carey, C. and Alexander, M. A. 2003. Climate change and amphibian declines: is there a link? Diversity and Distributions 9: 111-121.
Cogger, H. G. 2000. Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia. Reed Books, Sydney, NSW.
Collins, J. P. and Storfer, A. 2003. Global amphibian declines: sorting the hypotheses. Diversity and Distributions 9: 89-98.
Corn, P. S. and Fogleman, J. C. 1984. Extinction of Montane Populations of the Northern Leopard Frog ( Rana pipiens) in Colorado. Journal of Herpetology 18: 147-152.
Dankers, N. M. J. A. 1977. The ecology of an anuran community. PhD Thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney.
Daszak, P., Scott, D. E., Kilpatrick, A. M., Faggioni, C., Gibbins, J. W. and Porter, D. 2005. Amphibian population declines at Savannah River site are linked to climate, not chytridiomycosis. Ecology 86: 3232-3237.
Drew, A., Allen, E. J. and Allen, L. J. 2006. Analysis of climatic and geographic factors affecting the presence of chytridiomycosis in Australia. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 68: 245-250.
Duellman, W. E. and Trueb, L. 1986. Biology of Amphibians. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Gervasi, S. S. and Foufopoulos, J. 2008. Costs of plasticity: responses to desiccation decrease post-metamorphic immune function in a pond-breeding amphibian. Functional Ecology 22: 100-108.
Gibbs, J. P., and Breisch, A. R. 2001. Climate warming and calling phenology of frogs near Ithaca, New York, 1900-1999. Conservation Biology 15: 1175-1178.
Hero, J-M., Morrison, C., Gillespie, G., Roberts, J. D., Newell, D., Meyer, E., McDonald, K., Lemckert, F., Mahony, M., Osborne, W., Hines, H., Richards, S., Hoskin, C., Clarke, J., Doak, N. and Shoo, L. 2006. Overview of the conservation status of Australian Frogs. Pacific Conservation Biology 12: 313-320.
Hero, J-M., Williams, S. E. and Magnusson W. 2005. Ecological traits of declining amphibians in upland areas of eastern Australia. Journal of Zoology, London 267: 221-232.
Hilbert, D. W., Ostendorf, B. and Hopkins, M. 2001. Sensitivity of tropical forests to climate change in the humid tropics of North Queensland. Austral Ecology 26: 590-603.
Humphries, R. B. 1979. Dynamics of a Breeding Frog Community. PhD Thesis, Australian National University, Canberra.
James, T.Y., Litvintseva, A.P., Vilgalys, R., Morgan, J. A. T., Taylor, J. W., Fisher, M. C., Berger, L., Weldon, C., du Preez, L. and Longcore, J. E. 2009. Rapid global expansion of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis into declining and healthy amphibian populations. PLOS Pathogens. 2009; 5. e1000458.
Keisecker, J. M., Blaustein, A. R. and Belden, L. K. 2001. Complex causes of amphibian declines. Nature 410: 681-683.
La Marca, E., Lips, K. R., Lotters, S., Puschendorf, R., Ibanez, R., Rueda-Almonacid, J. V., Schulte, R., Marty, C., Castro, F., Manzanilla-Puppo, J., Garcia-Perez, J. E., Bolanos, F., Chaves, G., Pounds, J. A., Toral, E. and Young, B. E. 2005. Catastrophic population declines and extinctions in neotropical Harlequin frogs (Bufonidae: Atelopus). Biotropica 37: 190-201.
Lemckert, F. L. 2001. The influence of micrometeorological factors on the calling activity of the Australian frog Crinia signifera (Anura: Myobatrachidae). Australian Zoologist 31: 625-631.
Lemckert, F. and Grigg, G. 2010. Living in the 80s - seasonality and phenology of frog calling activity at Darkes Forest from 1987-1989. Australian Zoologist 35: 245-250.
Lips, K. R., Diffendorfer, J., Mendelson, J. R. III and Sears, M. W. 2008. Riding the wave: reconciling the roles of disease and climate change in amphibian declines. PLoS Biol 6: 441-454.
Mac Nally, R., Horrocks, G., Lada, H., Lake, P. S., Thomson, J. R. and Taylor, A. C. 2009. Distribution of anuran amphibians in massively altered landscapes in south-eastern Australia: Effects of climate change in an aridifying region. Global Ecology and Biogeography 18: 575-585.
McCallum, M. L. 2007. Amphibian decline or extinction? Current declines dwarf background extinction rate. Journal of Herpetology 41: 483-491.
McMenamin, S. K., Hadly, E. A. and Wright, C. K. 2008. Climatic change and wetland desiccation cause amphibian decline in Yellowstone National Park. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105: 16988-16993.
Meynecke, J.-O. 2004. Effects of global climate change on geographic distributions of vertebrates in North Queensland. Ecological Modelling 174: 347-357.
Nicholls, N., Drosdowsky, W. and Lavery, G. 1997. Australian rainfall variability and change. Weather 52: 66-71.
Penman, T. D., Lemckert, F. L. and Mahony, M. J. 2006. Meteorological effects on the activity of the giant burrowing frog, Heleioporus australiacus, in south-eastern Australia. Wildlife Research 33: 35-40.
Penman, T. D. and Lemckert, F. L. 2010. Predicted impact of climate change on threatened amphibians. Unpublished report to the Department of the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Hurstville.
Piotrowski, J. S., Annis, S. L. and Longcore, J. E. 2004. Physiology of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a chytrid pathogen of amphibians. The Mycological Society of America 96: 9-15.
Pounds, J. A., Fogden, M. P. L. and Campbell, J. H. 1999. Biological response to climate change on a tropical mountain. Nature 398: 611-615.
Pounds, J. A., Bustamante, M. R., Coloma, L. A., Consuegra, J. A., Fogden, M. P. L., Foster, P. N., La Marca, E., Masters, K. L., Merino-Viteri, A., Puschendorf, R., Ron, S. R., Sanches-Azofeifa, G. A., Still, C. J. and Young, B. E. 2006. Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global warming. Nature 439: 161*-167.
Reading, C. J. 1998. The effect of winter temperatures on the timing of breeding activity in the common toad, Bufo bufo.Oecologia 117: 469-475.
Reading, C. J. 2007. Linking global warming to amphibian declines through its effects on female body condition and survivorship. Oecologia 151: 125-131.
Roberts, J. D. and Watson, G. F. 1993. Biogeography and phylogeny of the anura. Pp 35-40 in Fauna of Australia. Vol 2a Amphibia and Reptilia, edited by C. J. Glasby, G. J. B., Ross, and P. L. Beesley. Australian Government Printing Service, Canberra.
Rohr, J. R., Raffel, T. R., Romansic, J., McCallum, H. and Hudson, P. J. 2008. Evaluating the links between climate, disease spread, and amphibian declines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 45: 17436-17441.
Seymour, R. S., Mahony, M. J. and Knowles, R. 1995. Respiration of embryos and larvae of the terrestrially breeding frog Kyarranus loveridgei.Herpetologica 51: 369-376.
Shoo, L. P., Olson, D. H., McMenamin, S. K., Murray, K. A., Van Sluys, M., Donnelly, M. A., Stratford, D., Terhivuo, J., Merino-Viteri, A., Herbert, S. M., Bishop, P. J., Corn, P. S., Dovey, L., Griffiths, R. A., Lowe, K., Mahony, M., McCallum, H., Shuker, J. D., Simpkins, C., Skerratt, L. F., Williams. S. E. and Hero, J-M. 2011. Engineering a future for amphibians under climate change. Journal of Applied Ecology doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01942.
Sodhi, N. S., Bickford, D., Diesmos, A. C., Lee, T. M., Koh, L. P., Brook, B. W., Sekercioglu, C. H. and Bradshow, C. J. A. 2008. Measuring the meltdown: drivers of global amphibian extinction and decline. PLoS One 3: e1636.
Stewart, M. M. 1995. Climate Driven Population Fluctuations in Rain-Forest Frogs. Journal of Herpetology 29: 437-446.
Stuart, S. N. Chanson, J. S., Cox, N. A., Young, B. E., Rodrigues, A. S. L., Fischman, D. L., Waller, R. W. 2004. Status and trends of amphibian declines and extinctions worldwide. Science 306: 1783-1786.
Suppiah., Hennessy, K. J., Whetton, P. H., McInnes, K., Macadam, I., Bathols, J., Ricketts, J. and Page, C. M. 2007. Australian climate change projections derived from simulations performed for the IPCC 4th Assessment Report. Australian Meteorological Magazine 56: 131-152.
Thumm, K. and Mahony, M., 1999. Loss and degradation of red-crowned toadlet habitat in the Sydney region, Pp 99-108 In Declines and Disappearances of Australian Frogs, edited by A. Campbell. Environment Australia, Canberra.
Tracy, C. R., Christian, K. A., Betts, G., Tracy, C. R. 2008. Body temperature and resistance to evaporative water loss in tropical Australian frogs. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A 150: 102-108.
Wells, K. D. 2007. The Ecology and Behavior of Amphibians. The University of Chicago Press.
Weygoldt, P. 1989. Changes in the composition of mountain stream frog communities in the Atlantic mountains of Brazil: frogs as indicators of environmental deteriorations. Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment 24: 249-256.
Williams, S. E., Bolitho, E. E. and Fox, S. 2003. Climate change in Australian tropical rainforests: an impending environmental catastrophe. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 270: 1887-1892.
Withers, P. C. 1993. Metabolic depression during aestivation in the Australian frogs, Neobatrachus and Cyclorana.Australian Journal of Zoology 41: 467-473.
Woodhams, D. C., Alford, R. A. and Marantelli, G. 2003. Emerging disease of amphibians cured by elevated body temperature. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 55: 65-67.
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References

Anstis, M. 2002. Tadpoles of South-eastern Australia: A Guide with Keys. Reed New Holland, Sydney.
Beebee. T. J. C. 1995. Amphibian breeding and climate. Nature 374: 219-220.
Berger, L., Speare, R., Daszak, P., Green, D. E., Cunningham, A. A., Goggin, C. L., Slocombe, R., Ragan, M. A., Hyatt, A. D., McDonald, K. R., Hines, H. B., Lips, K. R., Marantelli, G. & Parkes, H. 1998. Chytridiomycosis causes amphibian mortality associated with population declines in the rain forests of Australia and Central America. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 95: 9031-9036.
Berger, L. 2001. Diseases in Australian Frogs. PhD thesis, James Cook University, Townsville.
Blaustein, A. R., Belden, L. K., Olson, D. H., Green, D. M., Root, T. L. and Kiesecker, J. M. 2001. Amphibian breeding and climate change. Conservation Biology 15: 1804-1809.
Brattstrom, B. H. 1963. A preliminary review of the thermal requirements of amphibians. Ecology 44: 238-255.
Brattstrom, B. H. 1970. Thermal acclimation in Australian amphibians. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 35: 69-103.
Brereton, R., Bennett, S., Mansergh, I. 1995. Enhanced greenhouse climate change and its potential effect on selected fauna of South-Eastern Australia: a trend analysis. Biological Conservation 72: 339-354.
Carey, C. and Alexander, M. A. 2003. Climate change and amphibian declines: is there a link? Diversity and Distributions 9: 111-121.
Cogger, H. G. 2000. Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia. Reed Books, Sydney, NSW.
Collins, J. P. and Storfer, A. 2003. Global amphibian declines: sorting the hypotheses. Diversity and Distributions 9: 89-98.
Corn, P. S. and Fogleman, J. C. 1984. Extinction of Montane Populations of the Northern Leopard Frog ( Rana pipiens) in Colorado. Journal of Herpetology 18: 147-152.
Dankers, N. M. J. A. 1977. The ecology of an anuran community. PhD Thesis, University of Sydney, Sydney.
Daszak, P., Scott, D. E., Kilpatrick, A. M., Faggioni, C., Gibbins, J. W. and Porter, D. 2005. Amphibian population declines at Savannah River site are linked to climate, not chytridiomycosis. Ecology 86: 3232-3237.
Drew, A., Allen, E. J. and Allen, L. J. 2006. Analysis of climatic and geographic factors affecting the presence of chytridiomycosis in Australia. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 68: 245-250.
Duellman, W. E. and Trueb, L. 1986. Biology of Amphibians. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Gervasi, S. S. and Foufopoulos, J. 2008. Costs of plasticity: responses to desiccation decrease post-metamorphic immune function in a pond-breeding amphibian. Functional Ecology 22: 100-108.
Gibbs, J. P., and Breisch, A. R. 2001. Climate warming and calling phenology of frogs near Ithaca, New York, 1900-1999. Conservation Biology 15: 1175-1178.
Hero, J-M., Morrison, C., Gillespie, G., Roberts, J. D., Newell, D., Meyer, E., McDonald, K., Lemckert, F., Mahony, M., Osborne, W., Hines, H., Richards, S., Hoskin, C., Clarke, J., Doak, N. and Shoo, L. 2006. Overview of the conservation status of Australian Frogs. Pacific Conservation Biology 12: 313-320.
Hero, J-M., Williams, S. E. and Magnusson W. 2005. Ecological traits of declining amphibians in upland areas of eastern Australia. Journal of Zoology, London 267: 221-232.
Hilbert, D. W., Ostendorf, B. and Hopkins, M. 2001. Sensitivity of tropical forests to climate change in the humid tropics of North Queensland. Austral Ecology 26: 590-603.
Humphries, R. B. 1979. Dynamics of a Breeding Frog Community. PhD Thesis, Australian National University, Canberra.
James, T.Y., Litvintseva, A.P., Vilgalys, R., Morgan, J. A. T., Taylor, J. W., Fisher, M. C., Berger, L., Weldon, C., du Preez, L. and Longcore, J. E. 2009. Rapid global expansion of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis into declining and healthy amphibian populations. PLOS Pathogens. 2009; 5. e1000458.
Keisecker, J. M., Blaustein, A. R. and Belden, L. K. 2001. Complex causes of amphibian declines. Nature 410: 681-683.
La Marca, E., Lips, K. R., Lotters, S., Puschendorf, R., Ibanez, R., Rueda-Almonacid, J. V., Schulte, R., Marty, C., Castro, F., Manzanilla-Puppo, J., Garcia-Perez, J. E., Bolanos, F., Chaves, G., Pounds, J. A., Toral, E. and Young, B. E. 2005. Catastrophic population declines and extinctions in neotropical Harlequin frogs (Bufonidae: Atelopus). Biotropica 37: 190-201.
Lemckert, F. L. 2001. The influence of micrometeorological factors on the calling activity of the Australian frog Crinia signifera (Anura: Myobatrachidae). Australian Zoologist 31: 625-631.
Lemckert, F. and Grigg, G. 2010. Living in the 80s - seasonality and phenology of frog calling activity at Darkes Forest from 1987-1989. Australian Zoologist 35: 245-250.
Lips, K. R., Diffendorfer, J., Mendelson, J. R. III and Sears, M. W. 2008. Riding the wave: reconciling the roles of disease and climate change in amphibian declines. PLoS Biol 6: 441-454.
Mac Nally, R., Horrocks, G., Lada, H., Lake, P. S., Thomson, J. R. and Taylor, A. C. 2009. Distribution of anuran amphibians in massively altered landscapes in south-eastern Australia: Effects of climate change in an aridifying region. Global Ecology and Biogeography 18: 575-585.
McCallum, M. L. 2007. Amphibian decline or extinction? Current declines dwarf background extinction rate. Journal of Herpetology 41: 483-491.
McMenamin, S. K., Hadly, E. A. and Wright, C. K. 2008. Climatic change and wetland desiccation cause amphibian decline in Yellowstone National Park. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105: 16988-16993.
Meynecke, J.-O. 2004. Effects of global climate change on geographic distributions of vertebrates in North Queensland. Ecological Modelling 174: 347-357.
Nicholls, N., Drosdowsky, W. and Lavery, G. 1997. Australian rainfall variability and change. Weather 52: 66-71.
Penman, T. D., Lemckert, F. L. and Mahony, M. J. 2006. Meteorological effects on the activity of the giant burrowing frog, Heleioporus australiacus, in south-eastern Australia. Wildlife Research 33: 35-40.
Penman, T. D. and Lemckert, F. L. 2010. Predicted impact of climate change on threatened amphibians. Unpublished report to the Department of the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Hurstville.
Piotrowski, J. S., Annis, S. L. and Longcore, J. E. 2004. Physiology of Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a chytrid pathogen of amphibians. The Mycological Society of America 96: 9-15.
Pounds, J. A., Fogden, M. P. L. and Campbell, J. H. 1999. Biological response to climate change on a tropical mountain. Nature 398: 611-615.
Pounds, J. A., Bustamante, M. R., Coloma, L. A., Consuegra, J. A., Fogden, M. P. L., Foster, P. N., La Marca, E., Masters, K. L., Merino-Viteri, A., Puschendorf, R., Ron, S. R., Sanches-Azofeifa, G. A., Still, C. J. and Young, B. E. 2006. Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global warming. Nature 439: 161*-167.
Reading, C. J. 1998. The effect of winter temperatures on the timing of breeding activity in the common toad, Bufo bufo.Oecologia 117: 469-475.
Reading, C. J. 2007. Linking global warming to amphibian declines through its effects on female body condition and survivorship. Oecologia 151: 125-131.
Roberts, J. D. and Watson, G. F. 1993. Biogeography and phylogeny of the anura. Pp 35-40 in Fauna of Australia. Vol 2a Amphibia and Reptilia, edited by C. J. Glasby, G. J. B., Ross, and P. L. Beesley. Australian Government Printing Service, Canberra.
Rohr, J. R., Raffel, T. R., Romansic, J., McCallum, H. and Hudson, P. J. 2008. Evaluating the links between climate, disease spread, and amphibian declines. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 45: 17436-17441.
Seymour, R. S., Mahony, M. J. and Knowles, R. 1995. Respiration of embryos and larvae of the terrestrially breeding frog Kyarranus loveridgei.Herpetologica 51: 369-376.
Shoo, L. P., Olson, D. H., McMenamin, S. K., Murray, K. A., Van Sluys, M., Donnelly, M. A., Stratford, D., Terhivuo, J., Merino-Viteri, A., Herbert, S. M., Bishop, P. J., Corn, P. S., Dovey, L., Griffiths, R. A., Lowe, K., Mahony, M., McCallum, H., Shuker, J. D., Simpkins, C., Skerratt, L. F., Williams. S. E. and Hero, J-M. 2011. Engineering a future for amphibians under climate change. Journal of Applied Ecology doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01942.
Sodhi, N. S., Bickford, D., Diesmos, A. C., Lee, T. M., Koh, L. P., Brook, B. W., Sekercioglu, C. H. and Bradshow, C. J. A. 2008. Measuring the meltdown: drivers of global amphibian extinction and decline. PLoS One 3: e1636.
Stewart, M. M. 1995. Climate Driven Population Fluctuations in Rain-Forest Frogs. Journal of Herpetology 29: 437-446.
Stuart, S. N. Chanson, J. S., Cox, N. A., Young, B. E., Rodrigues, A. S. L., Fischman, D. L., Waller, R. W. 2004. Status and trends of amphibian declines and extinctions worldwide. Science 306: 1783-1786.
Suppiah., Hennessy, K. J., Whetton, P. H., McInnes, K., Macadam, I., Bathols, J., Ricketts, J. and Page, C. M. 2007. Australian climate change projections derived from simulations performed for the IPCC 4th Assessment Report. Australian Meteorological Magazine 56: 131-152.
Thumm, K. and Mahony, M., 1999. Loss and degradation of red-crowned toadlet habitat in the Sydney region, Pp 99-108 In Declines and Disappearances of Australian Frogs, edited by A. Campbell. Environment Australia, Canberra.
Tracy, C. R., Christian, K. A., Betts, G., Tracy, C. R. 2008. Body temperature and resistance to evaporative water loss in tropical Australian frogs. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A 150: 102-108.
Wells, K. D. 2007. The Ecology and Behavior of Amphibians. The University of Chicago Press.
Weygoldt, P. 1989. Changes in the composition of mountain stream frog communities in the Atlantic mountains of Brazil: frogs as indicators of environmental deteriorations. Studies on Neotropical Fauna and Environment 24: 249-256.
Williams, S. E., Bolitho, E. E. and Fox, S. 2003. Climate change in Australian tropical rainforests: an impending environmental catastrophe. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 270: 1887-1892.
Withers, P. C. 1993. Metabolic depression during aestivation in the Australian frogs, Neobatrachus and Cyclorana.Australian Journal of Zoology 41: 467-473.
Woodhams, D. C., Alford, R. A. and Marantelli, G. 2003. Emerging disease of amphibians cured by elevated body temperature. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 55: 65-67.
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