Deadly Connections Between Amphibians And Pesticides
January 10, 2007
Media Release - for Immediate Publication
Wednesday December 20, 2006
Environmental Group Launches Database of Pesticide Effects on Reptiles and Amphibians
(Eureka, CA) Capping a five-year-long effort, the citizens group Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATs) has created a user-friendly database of the most recent international research about the effects of pesticide use on amphibians and reptiles.
"By bringing together current research on beleaguered amphibians and reptiles, we have made this global information readily accessible to academics, neighborhood activists and students," said Patty Clary, CATs Programs Director.
CATs will update the database as new information becomes available, said Clary.
The Reptile, Amphibian and Pesticides database, or RAP, builds on an earlier one covering literature up to 1998 that was put together by the Canadian Wildlife Service.
"The value of this database is that biologists and other users can easily access information about the effects of pesticides on amphibians and reptiles drawn from a variety of sources," said Marlon Gil, a biologist who compiled the database for CATs.
"Hopefully this will enhance efforts to prevent losses of these species worldwide." said Gil, whose frog research has taken him as far afield as West Africa,
The updated research is searchable by species and genus, location of research, pesticide studied and toxicological effect. It includes a list of 327 scientific papers published since 1999 on the effects of pesticides on amphibians, as well as 128 research papers on pesticides' impacts on reptiles.
Most have links to summaries or full texts of the papers. The papers are searchable by keyword, author, title and journal. Links to lists of books and to sites with related information are also available.
Though the research comes from all over the world, it particularly includes critical in-the-field studies from California that are meshed with findings from the unique pesticide-use database of the state's Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR).
California is one of the "hot spots" in the global decline of amphibian populations. Read more here.
Posted on January 10, 2007 in Media and News | Link | Comments (0)