India’s frogs are finding allies from citizen science to sanctuaries Premium

Explore India's frog conservation efforts through citizen science and sanctuaries, highlighting their critical ecological role on World Frog Day.

World Frog Day on March 20 celebrates the role of frogs, the world’s most numerous amphibians. They live at the interface between freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems, eat insects and in turn get eaten by other vertebrates, and are thus crucial in converting insect biomass into vertebrate biomass.

Losing them can mean a boom in insects that prey on plants as well as a depleted food base for many terrestrial vertebrates, which in turn can irreparably damage both freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems. Unfortunately for the earth, since the 1980s, frog and other amphibian populations have been on the decline worldwide. In 2023, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Global Amphibian Assessment Report said 37 species have become extinct and continue to decline, making them the most threatened vertebrate group.

The most prominent historical driver of amphibian decline has been chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and Bactrachochytrium salamandrivorans in frogs and salamanders, respectively. This disease affects their skin — an organ that protects them as well as allows respiration and exchange of ions to maintain electrolyte balance. In the last two decades, more than 60% of amphibians globally have been affected by it — although intensive monitoring and conservation efforts have reduced the extinction risk of 63 species, halving the impact.

Today, however, the most important drivers of extinction are climate change for 39% of species and habitat loss for 37%.

India is home to more than 450 amphibian species, and roughly a quarter of them are categorised as ‘threatened’ and one-fifth as ‘data deficient’. The burden of B. dendrobatidis and B. salamandrivorans fungi in India is substantial but it has not caused mass mortality the way it has for frogs in the Americas and Australia. 

B.dendrobatidis and B. salamandrivorans both had their roots in Asia and spread worldwide through the trade on frog legs and salamanders as pets. In 1987, after Humayun Abdul Ali from Bombay Natural History Society published a scientific report highlighting their role in controlling agricultural pests, this trade was banned. However, by then, frog and salamander populations had been significantly affected as B. dendrobatidis had spread from Asia to Europe, the Americas, and Australia.