Which way will Cape frogs jump when it gets hotter?

This week saw the publication of Mac's climate modelling paper where he determines the movement of the fynbos amphibian community in the face of global climate change. His paper shows convincingly that the rate of change for these amphibians is likely to be much larger over the next 50 years than it has been in the past 20 000 years.

Amphibians have been losing out in the Cape for 20 000 years mainly due to the rise in sea level and the loss of a lot of the Agulhus Bank (see also Schreiner et al 2013). However, future climate change will see the rate of loss accelerating. For more information, read the article: Mokhatla et al 2015.

Giovanni steals the show

Giovanni Vimercati gave a talk entitled "Game of Toads: is winter coming?" and was awarded the CIB travel prize for the best PhD student presentation at the CIB Annual Research Meeting. Part of his presentation involved making an infographic which is shown below:

Not content with this, the next week he gave a longer version of the same talk to the Botany & Zoology Department at Stellenbosch University and won the Best PhD Presentation 2015. 

Well done, Gio!

Centre for Invasion Biology Annual Research Meeting 2015

The ARM gives an opportunity for all CIB students to present their research. Can you see the members of the MeaseyLab above?

Functional responses as a tool in invasion ecology

We had fantastic attendance from 3 continents at the functional response workshop.

Hosted by the CIB, this event focussed on the emerging use of functional responses to as a diagnostic in invasion ecology and the importance of its grounding in traditional ecology. For more information click here.

This meeting has now produced a series of publications in Biological Invasions:

Functional responses can unify invasion ecology

Functional responses can’t unify invasion ecology

Fictional responses from Vonesh et al.

Rather than unifying invasion biology, Dick et al.’s approach rests on subjective foundations

It's a great academic back and forth that we really hope you enjoy reading...

Southern African Amphibian Red Listing

From Wednesday to Friday we covered 68 southern African amphibians assessing their Red List status.

Back Row (left to right): Alex Rebelo, John Measey, Rob Hopkins, Alan Channing, Andrew Turner, Atherton de Villiers

Middle Row (left to right): Les Minter, Michael Cunningham, Werner Conradie, Francois Becker, Krystal Tolley, James Harvey

Front Row (left to right): Louis du Preez, Tilla Raimondo, Jeanne Tarrant, Yankho Chapeta, Ninda Baptista

The southern African region (Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe) has 239 amphibian species, of which 38 carry an IUCN threatened status (Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered), and a further 32 are considered Data Deficient. The entire region was last assessed in 2004, while South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland were assessed during a workshop in 2009 (see Measey 2011). The workshop conducted from 4 to 6 November 2015 had 16 representatives from Angola, Malawi, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, whose combined expertise on amphibians is considered to cover the entire region. Over three days, the participants considered each of the 70 species from the southern African region that were not of Least Concern, together with any newly described species or species that had been taxonomically updated. This was the first IUCN Red Listing experience for partners from Angola, Malawi and Zimbabwe who gained important training and insights into the Red Listing process.

The regular update of IUCN’s Red List is important both in terms of assessing ongoing threats to the region’s amphibian biodiversity. Participants were able to bring attention to regions under particular threat, as well as species that have not been seen for many decades. In addition to the formal Red Listing procedure, the workshop made time to examine the results of priorities that were made for amphibian research at the 2009 meeting. Given the low capacity and funding for threatened amphibian species, prioritising amphibian research was seen as a successful initiative for South Africa, with the suggestion that this should be extended to the entire southern African region. Participants began to put together new priorities for the next five years that will go together with the next Red List assessment for the region in 2020.