Our results demonstrate that complex influences of several factors
associated with amphibian population declines vary across
species and areas. In testing the climate hypothesis, we considered
two principal aspects of climate affecting amphibians: the decrease
of water availability in space and time, and the increase in temperature.
A number of climatologic studies (e.g. Brunetti et al., 2004,
2006; Toreti and Desiato, 2008) described a positive trend for mean
temperature, a reduction of number of wet days, and an increase in
precipitation intensity all over Italy during the last century. These
trends occurred mainly in the last 50 years, supporting the hypothesis
of human-induced climatic shift. Our results show that these
patterns agree with the observed spatial association between climatic
changes and the occurred losses. The climatic shifts were
important even for those species with the lowest rates of decline,
suggesting that these species may be quite vulnerable to ongoing
Our results demonstrate that complex influences of several factorsassociated with amphibian population declines vary acrossspecies and areas. In testing the climate hypothesis, we consideredtwo principal aspects of climate affecting amphibians: the decreaseof water availability in space and time, and the increase in temperature.A number of climatologic studies (e.g. Brunetti et al., 2004,2006; Toreti and Desiato, 2008) described a positive trend for meantemperature, a reduction of number of wet days, and an increase inprecipitation intensity all over Italy during the last century. Thesetrends occurred mainly in the last 50 years, supporting the hypothesisof human-induced climatic shift. Our results show that thesepatterns agree with the observed spatial association between climaticchanges and the occurred losses. The climatic shifts wereimportant even for those species with the lowest rates of decline,suggesting that these species may be quite vulnerable to ongoing
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