Local (alpha) diversity of frog communities was similar in the two
tropical areas, New Guinea (mean ± SE of 22 ± 1.4 species per site) and
Amazonia (24 ± 1.7 species), but was significantly lower in Europe (8 ± 0.8
species). In Amazonia, 36 of the total of 70 species were recorded from single
sites. In contrast, widespread species dominated in Europe, whereas New Guinea
exhibited an intermediate pattern with both local and widespread species well
represented. The rate of species accumulation across different sites was lowest in
Europe, intermediate in New Guinea and highest in Amazonia. The regional
species diversity, expressed as the combined number of species from five study
sites, was 1.5 times higher than the local species diversity at a single site in Europe,
2.0 times higher in New Guinea and 2.7 times higher in Amazonia. The
proportion of species shared between communities decreased with geographic
distance in New Guinea and Europe, but not in Amazonia.