Melanesia holds the world’s most diverse and intact insular amphibian fauna
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Bower, Deborah S
McDonald, Peter J
Kraus, Fred
Luedtke, Jennifer
Neam, Kelsey
Hobin, Louise
Chauvenet, Alienor LM
Allison, Allen
Arida, Evy
Clulow, Simon
Gunther, Rainer
Nagombi, Elizah
Tjaturadi, Burhan
Travers, Scott L
et al.
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Identifying hotspots of biological diversity is a key step in conservation prioritisation. Melanesia—centred on the vast island of New Guinea—is increasingly recognised for its exceptionally species-rich and endemic biota. Here we show that Melanesia has the world’s most diverse insular amphibian fauna, with over 7% of recognised global frog species in less than 0.7% of the world’s land area, and over 97% of species endemic. We further estimate that nearly 200 additional candidate species have been discovered but remain unnamed, pointing to a total fauna in excess of 700 species. Nearly 60% of the Melanesian frog fauna is in a lineage of direct-developing microhylids characterised by smaller distributions than co-occurring frog families, suggesting lineage-specific high beta diversity is a key driver of Melanesian anuran megadiversity. A comprehensive conservation status assessment further highlights geographic concentrations of recently described range-restricted threatened taxa that warrant urgent conservation actions. Nonetheless, by world standards, the Melanesian frog fauna is relatively intact, with 6% of assessed species listed as threatened and no documented extinctions; and thus it provides an unparalleled opportunity to understand and conserve a megadiverse and relatively intact insular biota.
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Communications Biology
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5
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© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Biological sciences
Biomedical and clinical sciences
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Biology
Multidisciplinary Sciences
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Oliver, PM; Bower, DS; McDonald, PJ; Kraus, F; Luedtke, J; Neam, K; Hobin, L; Chauvenet, ALM; Allison, A; Arida, E; Clulow, S; Gunther, R; Nagombi, E; Tjaturadi, B; Travers, SL; et al., Melanesia holds the world’s most diverse and intact insular amphibian fauna, Communications Biology, 2022, 5, pp. 1182