Santiago de Compostela, Friday, 4 October 2024. The Institute of Marine Research (IIM), following the incorporation of David R. Vieites into the INMARE group, is carrying out research on amphibian diversity in Madagascar that has revealed the possibility that it may be twice as high as currently recognised.
The details of the research, partly funded by the State Research Agency, have been published in the journal Diversity and Distributions in the article “A race against extinction: The challenge to overcome the Linnean amphibian shortfall in tropical biodiversity hotspots”, authored by David R. Vieites and Albert Carné, both formerly linked to the National Museum of Natural Sciences and currently at the IIM.
“Madagascar is one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet. For this reason, it was selected to address the urgent need to explore and document biodiversity, especially in tropical biodiversity hotspots,” they explain.
The researchers analysed all available genetic data for frog species from Madagascar, including specimens that had not yet been taxonomically studied, with the ultimate aim of characterising the island’s amphibian diversity. This made it possible to identify new candidate species that are genetically highly divergent from those already described.
“There are 413 described frog species in Madagascar, and we identified 408 divergent lineages, including 310 new candidate species awaiting taxonomic review,” says David Vieites. “We consider candidate species to be those that are genetically highly divergent from described species and may show differences in morphology and calls. After this characterisation, a taxonomic review is needed before they can officially be recognised as species.”
“We are still very far from knowing how many species share the planet with us, but we do know that most of them have not yet been described and, unfortunately, face an unpromising future,” comments Albert Carné, who is carrying out an industrial PhD on Madagascar’s diversity through a collaboration between Science and Business and CSIC.
The results suggest that real diversity must be much higher than currently known across poorly explored tropical areas.
“If, in a group of vertebrates such as amphibians, which are colourful and well-studied, diversity is twice as high as recognised, the difference may be even greater in less-studied groups such as invertebrates or plants,” says Vieites. Carné adds that many of the new candidate species were found in areas already explored, while much virgin forest has still never been studied. “What will happen in those tropical areas of the world that are being destroyed and about which we know almost nothing? How many species will we lose without even documenting their existence?”
The study calls for intensified conservation efforts that take this new diversity into account, as well as the need for further exploration in less-studied tropical regions.
“Madagascar is an example of what is happening across the planet: the regions richest in species are those suffering the greatest habitat destruction, as is also the case in the Amazon or Central Africa, with the logical loss of biodiversity. Many of the species from which we obtain compounds used in medicine or biotechnology come from these regions,” the researchers conclude.
INMARE
INMARE is a multidisciplinary group mainly focused on ecological studies of marine organisms through complementary approaches. Its topics cover a broad spectrum, from ecology, evolutionary biology, genomics and conservation to basic and applied studies for ecosystem-level management of marine resources that guarantee biodiversity conservation.
INMARE focuses on generating the knowledge needed to guarantee the protection, conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity, including exploited resources. This knowledge is aimed at developing the tools needed to properly implement an ecosystem approach in the management of marine resources.