Mae Lowe Diesmos

The Philippine amphibian fauna includes five introduced species of frogs: Bufo marinus (Linnaeus), Rana catesbeiana (Shaw), Hoplobatrachus chinensis (Osbeck), Rana erythraea (Schlegel), and Kaloula pulchra Gray. Bufo marinus was introduced in the Philippines in the 1930s purportedly to control the explosive population of crop insect pests. The species is now found in numerous islands across the country through subsequent introductions both accidental and deliberate in nature. Rana catesbeiana and possibly H. chinensis were both intentionally introduced during the 1960s for commercial farming. Escaping confinement, populations of these species can now be found on several major islands of the country. The history of introduction of R. erythraea and K. pulchra in the Philippines remains unclear. Among these species, B. marinus and H. chinensis exhibit the highest population densities and are widely distributed. Our findings also suggest that H. chinensis is a potentially harmful invasi...

This study highlights the ecology, natural history, and a new distribution record by providing a unique habitat occurrence record in karst ecosystem and describes a tail anomaly of the endemic Mamanwa Bent-toed Gecko Cyrtodactylus mamanwa in the province of Dinagat. The detection of a new population on Unib Island in the southwestern Dinagat extends the previously known distribution of this gekkonid by approximately 100 km south from its known distribution.

Niche shifts and environmental non-equilibrium in invading alien species undermine niche-based predictions of alien species’ potential distributions and, consequently, their usefulness for invasion risk assessments. Here, we compared the realized climatic niches of four alien amphibian species (Hylarana erythraea, Rhinella marina, Hoplobatrachus rugulosus, and Kaloula pulchra) in their native and Philippine-invaded ranges to investigate niche changes that have unfolded during their invasion and, with this, assessed the extent of niche conservatism and environmental equilibrium. We investigated how niche changes affected reciprocal transferability of ecological niche models (ENMs) calibrated using data from the species’ native and Philippine-invaded ranges, and both ranges combined. We found varying levels of niche change across the species’ realized climatic niches in the Philippines: climatic niche shift for H. rugulosus; niche conservatism for R. marina and K. pulchra; environment...

We performed the first host-parasite survey of the Philippine crocodile, Crocodylus mindorensis, a critically endangered species for which ecological information is lacking. We collected by gastric lavage samples of the stomach contents of crocodiles (n = 10) residing at the Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Center in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines. The only parasite detected was an acanthocephalan, which was identified as Neorhadinorhynchus nudus (n = 68), a parasite typically found in the marine fish species consumed by three crocodile individuals. Given the known hosts of N. nudus, its parasitism of C. mindorensis in captivity is likely established by consumption of marine fish. Our findings have implications for the conservation management of C. mindorensis, particularly in terms of preventing introduction of parasites that could lead to development of infectious disease or alter the fitness of captive animals.

The Philippine amphibian fauna includes five introduced species of frogs: Bufo marinus (Linnaeus), Rana catesbeiana (Shaw), Hoplobatrachus chinensis (Osbeck), Rana erythraea (Schlegel), and Kaloula pulchra Gray. Bufo marinus was introduced in the Philippines in the 1930s purportedly to control the explosive population of crop insect pests. The species is now found in numerous islands across the country through subsequent introductions both accidental and deliberate in nature. Rana catesbeiana and possibly H. chinensis were both intentionally introduced during the 1960s for commercial farming. Escaping confinement, populations of these species can now be found on several major islands of the country. The history of introduction of R. erythraea and K. pulchra in the Philippines remains unclear. Among these species, B. marinus and H. chinensis exhibit the highest population densities and are widely distributed. Our findings also suggest that H. chinensis is a potentially harmful invasive species. This paper reviews the status and distribution of alien invasive frogs known in the Philippines and summarizes updated ecological information on each species. We also provide management recommendations to help control the spread of these alien frogs and  introduced organisms in general in the Philippines.

34| FrogLog Vol. 98| September 2011 of the mountain yellow-legged frog over the course of several seasons, with metapopulations being driven to extinction within months (Vredenburg et al. 2010). This does not appear to be the pattern in Asia where several years of sampling have not revealed population-level declines.

We describe a new species of limestone karst dwelling forest frog of the genus Platymantis from the Quezon Protected Landscape in southeastern Luzon Island, Philippines. We assign Platymantis quezoni, sp. nov., to the diverse assemblage of terrestrial species in the Platymantis dorsalis Group, subgenus Lupacolus on the basis of its body size and proportions, only slightly expanded terminal discs of the fingers and toes, and its terrestrial microhabitat. The new species is distinguished from these and all other Philippine congeners by features of its external morphology, its restriction to a distinctive limestone karst microhabitat, and its advertisement call, which is unique among frogs of the family Ceratobatrachidae. Several distinguishing morphological characters include its moderate body size (22.1-33.9 mm SVL for 16 adult males and 32.4-39.7 mm SVL for five adult females), slightly expanded terminal discs of the fingers and toes, smooth skin with limited dermal tuberculation, and a dorsal color pattern of mottled tan to dark brown with black blotches. The new species is the sixth Philippine Platymantis known to occur exclusively on limestone karst substrates (previously known karst-obligate species include: P. bayani, P. biak, P. insulatus, P. paengi, and P. speleaus). Recently accelerated discovery of limestone karst anurans across the Philippines suggests that numerous additional species may await discovery on the hundreds of scattered karst formations throughout the archipelago. This possibility suggests that a major conservation priority in coming years will be to study, characterize, describe, and preserve the endemic species supported by this patchy, unique and imperiled type of forest ecosystem in the Philippines.