Whenever people ask me why I study amphibians, I usually answer like a scientist, with rational explanations and data. A few days ago, however, I found myself thinking about my first contact with amphibians, and I remembered the pond in my village, where I used to catch tadpoles and listen to a tremendous chorus of frogs. Unfortunately, that chorus has now fallen silent.
When we look at the data, we can see that this is not an isolated event. There is a global trend of amphibian decline. More than 40% of amphibian species are currently threatened, making them the most vulnerable group of vertebrates in the world. We have already witnessed the extinction of more than 30 amphibian species, and more than 200 are classified as possibly extinct.
The areas most affected are mainly tropical biodiversity hotspots, such as Central and South America, Southeast Asia, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, and several Caribbean islands, where levels of endemism are especially high. However, this is not only a tropical problem. It is also occurring in southern Europe, a region rich in vulnerable endemic species such as the Pyrenean frog, the Pyrenean newt, and the gold-striped salamander.
The main drivers of this decline include habitat degradation caused by agriculture and infrastructure development, climate change, diseases, and invasive species. Research funding is also highly uneven: amphibians receive less than 3% of conservation funding, while birds and mammals receive between 70% and 85%.
Amphibians must be conserved because they play essential roles in ecosystems and, therefore, indirectly support human well-being. They are a key part of food webs, serving as prey for birds, mammals, and reptiles, while also acting as predators of many insect groups and helping control pest populations. They are also excellent bioindicators of habitat quality because their permeable skin makes them highly sensitive to pollutants and to changes in temperature and precipitation. Beyond their ecological value, amphibians also have intrinsic worth as living beings and conserving them is a matter of intergenerational justice.
Their future as a group remains uncertain, but one threat is shared across almost all species: thermal stress caused by climate change through rising temperatures and increasingly frequent and intense heatwaves. As ectotherms, amphibians cannot regulate their body temperature internally and are therefore highly dependent on environmental conditions. Many studies have shown that populations tend to shift uphill and northward. However, species already living at mountaintops or facing geographical barriers have nowhere left to go. To determine which species and populations will be most affected by climate change, ecophysiology is a powerful tool. Understanding how organisms function and interact with their environment is essential for making more refined predictions and directing conservation efforts where they are most urgently needed.
I am a young researcher from Oviedo, Asturias. Growing up surrounded by nature sparked my fascination with the natural world from an early age and inspired me to study Biology in my hometown. After completing my undergraduate studies, I moved to Madrid to pursue a Master´s degree in Ecology.
After graduating, I had the opportunity to work in the Pyrenees in the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology, a research centre within the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) where I contributed to an insect conservation project.
Currently, I am a predoctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology at the University of Oviedo. My research focuses on the ecophysiology of amphibians, generating data to better predict how species and populations within this vulnerable group may respond to climate change.