An island haven for frogs in a sea of extinctions. Plan to keep New Guinea's frogs safe from the species-destroying chytrid fungus - via Herp Digest

Date: June 3, 2019

Source: Macquarie University

New Guinea is one of the only places in the world where frogs are safe from the species-destroying chytrid fungus. An international team of scientists has published a new paper that shows how to keep it that way, but they need help to carry out their plan.

The chytrid fungus has wiped out more than 90 frog species around the world, and it's driving hundreds more towards extinction. New Guinea -- the world's largest tropical island, and home to 6% of all known frog species -- is one of the last remaining refuges from the deadly infection.

A team of scientists led by researchers from Macquarie University and the University of New England in Australia think they know how to keep the island's frogs safe, but they need support to establish a long-term program of monitoring and conservation.

Writing in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, the group of 30 experts from Australia, the USA, China, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea calls for urgent action.

"You don't often spot a conservation disaster before it happens and get the chance to stop it," says Deborah Bower of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, who is the first author of the article. "We know what needs to be done.”

The infectious chytrid fungus has been described as the most destructive pathogen known to science. It has destroyed more than 90 species of frog entirely and caused declines in almost 500 more.

The international pet trade helped the chytrid fungus spread rapidly from its origins in East Asia over recent decades, and it now infects frogs on every continent. It is one of the key reasons why 40% of the world's frog species now face the threat of extinction.

New Guinea's tropical climate and hundreds of native frog species make it an ideal environment for chytrid. But field tests have so far found no traces of the killer fungus.

"A lot of New Guinea's frogs are closely related to Australian species that have been devastated by chytrid, so we expect they would be just as vulnerable," says Simon Clulow at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, who leads the research team.

"Other New Guinea frog species are unusual because they hatch from eggs as fully formed frogs, rather than going through a tadpole stage, and we don't know how chytrid will affect them.”

The team estimates that around 100 species of frog would be in danger if chytrid reaches New Guinea, and their decline could have huge impacts across the ecosystem as they are predators of insects and other small creatures but also prey for larger animals.

The research team includes international experts in frog conservation -- including Lee Berger, the Australian who first discovered the chytrid fungus and showed it was responsible for frog species declines and extinctions -- alongside local researchers with deep knowledge of the environment of New Guinea.

They have been studying frogs in New Guinea since 2015, and have already started working with zoos, universities and the Papua New Guinea government to build a program to keep captive frogs and store their sperm and eggs to preserve genetic diversity.

The team has developed a 5-step program of preparation, prevention, detection, response and recovery to keep the deadly fungus off New Guinea and to minimise the impact if it does arrive.

As well as preserving New Guinea's frogs, the program would build local capacity in science, and disease surveillance and diagnosis that will have applications for animal and public health.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Macquarie University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Deborah S Bower, Karen R Lips, Yolarnie Amepou, Stephen Richards, Chris Dahl, Elizah Nagombi, Miriam Supuma, Lisa Dabek, Ross A Alford, Lin Schwarzkopf, Mark Ziembicki, Jeffrey N Noro, Amir Hamidy, Graeme R Gillespie, Lee Berger, Carla Eisemberg, Yiming Li, Xuan Liu, Charlotte K Jennings, Burhan Tjaturadi, Andrew Peters, Andrew K Krockenberger, Dillian Nason, Mirza D Kusrini, Rebecca J Webb, Lee F Skerratt, Chris Banks, Andrew L Mack, Arthur Georges, Simon Clulow. Island of opportunity: can New Guinea protect amphibians from a globally emerging pathogen? Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2019; DOI: 10.1002/fee.2057

An island haven for frogs in a sea of extinctions

Plan to keep New Guinea's frogs safe from the species-destroying chytrid fungus

Date:  June 3, 2019

Source:  Macquarie University

New Guinea is one of the only places in the world where frogs are safe from the species-destroying chytrid fungus. An international team of scientists has published a new paper that shows how to keep it that way, but they need help to carry out their plan.

The chytrid fungus has wiped out more than 90 frog species around the world, and it's driving hundreds more towards extinction. New Guinea -- the world's largest tropical island, and home to 6% of all known frog species -- is one of the last remaining refuges from the deadly infection.

A team of scientists led by researchers from Macquarie University and the University of New England in Australia think they know how to keep the island's frogs safe, but they need support to establish a long-term program of monitoring and conservation.

Writing in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, the group of 30 experts from Australia, the USA, China, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea calls for urgent action.

"You don't often spot a conservation disaster before it happens and get the chance to stop it," says Deborah Bower of the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, who is the first author of the article. "We know what needs to be done."

The infectious chytrid fungus has been described as the most destructive pathogen known to science. It has destroyed more than 90 species of frog entirely and caused declines in almost 500 more.

Read more

Hairy-Legged 'Chewbacca Beetle' Discovered in New Guinea

by Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | April 26, 2016 07:15am ET

The towering and shaggy Wookiee character Chewbacca from the "Star Wars" movies has a new namesake — a tiny weevil recently discovered in New Guinea.

Though the insect is significantly smaller and much less hairy than everyone's favorite "walking carpet," dense scales on the weevil's legs and head reminded the scientists of Chewbacca's fur, prompting their name choice.

Trigonopterus chewbacca is one of four new weevil species identified on the island of New Britain in the Bismarck Archipelago in New Guinea. Discovered alongside it were the somewhat less whimsically named weevils T. obsidianus, T. puncticollis and T. silaliensis.

T. chewbacca is a flightless weevil, a type of beetle typically found in leaf litter in forests. The male's body is black with hair-like structures on its antennae and legs, and measures 0.13 inches (3.34 millimeters) in length.

Scientists spent 10 days combing through leaf litter for the miniscule beetles, eventually collecting 18 specimens that represented the four new species.

Previously, only one known species in the Trigonopterus weevil group had been found in this region, although prior studies described Trigonopterus weevils in New Caledonia, Samoa and Fiji. While T. chewbacca was the first species in this group that was named for a "Star Wars" character, it's not the only one with a celebrity-inspired moniker. Trigonopterus attenboroughi — described in a study published in ZooKeys in 2014 — was named for famed British naturalist Sir David Attenborough.

Continued ...

The scaled king and his knight: Two new giant bent-toed gecko species from New Guinea

Date:February 11, 2016

Source:Pensoft Publishers

The extremely complex geological history of New Guinea has allowed many of its animals and plants the chance to grow different enough to make a name for themselves. In the case of two newly described and unusually large gecko species -- only a noble name would do. The two new species whose names respectively mean 'knight' and 'king' were discovered by a team led by Dr. Paul Oliver, The Australian National University and University of Melbourne, are described in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Both new species belong to the world's most diverse gecko genus Cyrtodactylus which comprises more than 200 species known to date. These reptiles are commonly called bent-toed or bow-fingered geckos due to their distinctive slender curved toes. They occur through Asia and Australia.

These 200 species vary greatly in size, build and colouration. However, one of the newly described species, called C. rex, meaning "king" in Latin, is the largest species in the genus, and among the biggest of all geckos in the world.

Read on ...

101 Beetles Get Names from Phone Book

Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

Date: 27 March 2013 Time: 08:01 AM ET

What do you do when you run across hundreds of nameless species of beetle in the wilderness of New Guinea?

No, the correct answer is not "run away screaming" — at least if you're a scientist dedicated to discovering the massive diversity of insect life. Instead, researchers from the German Natural History Museum Karlsruhe and the Zoological State Collection in Munich turned to the phone book to label all the new species.

After discovering hundreds of distinct species of weevils (a superfamily of beetles) in the genus Trigonopterus, scientists Alexander Riedel and Michael Balke realized they could spend a lifetime describing and naming them all. So they created a scientific shortcut: sequencing a portion of each weevil's DNA to sort out the different species and taking photographs for the online database Species ID, a Wikipedia-like website for cataloguing biodiversity.

"More than 100 species were brought to the light of science and public attention this way right now — about five times faster than possible with traditional techniques," Riedel said in a statement.

To quickly label the species, the researchers used common family names from the Papua New Guinea phone book. One weevil got the moniker Trigonopterus moreaorum after the common name "Morea."

Continued:  http://www.livescience.com/28210-beetles-get-phone-book-names.html

Largest congregation of Critically Endangered Beck’s petrel ever recorded

Beck's petrel spotted off Papua New Guinea

June 2012. A BirdLife International survey in southern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, has encountered the largest single aggregation of Critically Endangered Beck's petrelPseudobulweria becki, ever recorded. Upwards of 100 birds were estimated to be present at one location, with a single count recording 58 birds. For a seabird species lost to science for 79 years until its rediscovery in 2007 these vital new data offer a glimmer of hope.

"There was huge excitement from everyone involved as the first bird banked past our small boat. That turned into amazement as we counted more and more across the horizon", said Jez Bird - the project leader from BirdLife International. "These findings give us momentum, and some important clues to take the conservation of Beck's Petrel forward."

Lost for 70 years
Until recently, Beck's Petrel was only known from two specimens: a female taken at sea east of New Ireland,Papua New Guinea in 1928, and a male taken in the Solomon Islands in 1929. Its rediscovery in July and August 2007, was made when an expedition encountered the species on seven days and at at-least four localities off New Ireland. Beck's Petrel is listed as Critically Endangered by BirdLife on behalf of the IUCN Red List because it is thought to have a global population of fewer than 250 mature individuals that is believed to be declining. The petrel was rediscovered by Hadoram Shirihai, who is the author of The Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/becks-petrel-2012.html

84 new species of ant-like flower beetles discovered in Wallacea and New Guinea

Expert takes fresh look, revealing staggering new numbers

November 2011: International Anthicidae specialist Dr Dmitry Telnov, of the Entomological Society of Latvia, Riga, writes about the amazing discovery of 84 new ant-like flower beetles in Wallacea and New Guinea.

During the past 15 years, I have discovered and scientifically described more than 150 species of ant-like flower beetles from various regions of our planet, from Peru to Madagascar and from southern China to Australia .

But I was surprised by the results of a recent revision of these beetles in Indo-Australia. Three expeditions to Halmahera, Seram, Misool and some areas of West Papua proved the diversity of Macratria of this region was previously underestimated.

Twenty-eight species of this genus were previously known from Sulawesi, Lesser Sundas, the Moluccas and New Guinea. Specimen records were available from eight islands of this area.

But now I can describe a further 84 species - all new to science. Data was collected from 23 islands (compared to the eight known until now) for biogeographical analysis.

Surprisingly, only two species are shared with the neighbouring Oriental realm and not a single species is shared with so close Australian mainland. Now 108 Macratria species are known from the study region, 99 per cent being endemic to the region. This makes Indo-Australian transition zone to the main diversity hotspot of Macratria on the planet.

According to my studies, Macratria are most abundant in lowland and lower montane rainforests, but more local endemics are to be found in high and mid-high montane rainforests. In total, only few species are known from more than one island or single mountain ridge. Most of species seems to be strictly locally endemic to geographically little areas.

Results are published in a new book series, Biodiversity, Biogeography And Nature Conservation In Wallacea And New Guinea. The major goal of this book series is to establish a discussion board to give biologists the opportunity to publish results of their studies at one issue series and not split them among hundreds of magazines. To find out more, go to: http://leb.daba.lv/book/ad.pdf
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/ant-beetle.html