Golden toad was 'first species known to be made extinct by climate change'
A beautiful golden toad which lived in the cloud forest of Costa Rica was the first species where climate change was a key driver in its extinction.
The golden toads – the size of a child’s thumb – disappeared in 1990, and their demise was highlighted in a UN report this year.
Researchers warn that more and more species are threatened by climate change.
Around one million species already face extinction, many within decades, according to the recent Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessment report.
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J Alan Pounds, an ecologist at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve in Costa Rica, told AFP: "The soils are very dark and so golden toads would stand out like animal figurines. It was quite a spectacle."
"It was pretty clear about 99% of the population declined within a single year.”
"We haven't completely given up.”
"But with each passing year, it looks less likely that they're going to reappear."
The golden toad was singled out in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report this year.
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Even if warming is capped at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the IPC says nearly one in 10 of all species face an extinction threat.
The golden toad only lived in one area in Monteverde’s highland forest – so global warming had a huge impact after unusually warm and dry periods.
Pounds and his colleagues linked the decline in frog numbers to chytridiomycosis infection, triggered by climate change.
Pounds said: "We hypothesised that climate change and resultant extreme events were somehow loading the dice for these kinds of outbreaks.”
Every world region faces a high risk of more species losses and extinctions.
At 1.5C warming, scientists expect 3-14% of the world's species on land could vanish, this year’s IPCC report warned.
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Most at risk are coastal species that face future sea level rise, as well as those dependent on seasonal river flows that will be disrupted by drought or by earlier melting of glaciers upriver.
Plants and animals that can't easily move to more hospitable areas are also at high risk.
The report underlines the need to conserve 30% to 50% of the Earth's land, freshwater and ocean areas – echoing the 30% goal of the UN's Convention on Biodiversity.
Less than 15% of the world's land, 21% of its freshwater and just 8% of oceans are under some form of protection, often with "insufficient stewardship", the report says.
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