Partnerships between private landowners and conservationists to protect one of the most evolutionarily distinct amphibians ANDRÉS VALEN ZUELA-SÁNCHEZ * 1 , 2 ,S EBASTIÁN MIRAN DA 3
RICARDO MORE N O-GONZAL E Z 4 , 5 , 6 ,J ULIO GERDIN G 4,RAY E N CATRILEO 4 J ULES GUILLEMO T 4 ,S OL EDAD DELGADO-OYA R Z Ú N 2,MAR I C EL A NÚÑE Z 2 ANDREW A. CUNNINGHAM1 and MARÍA B ELÉN ZAP A R ARTE 3
Abstract Wildlife conservation on private land is an im- portant approach that is increasingly utilized to protect bio- diversity and can help contribute to the 30 by 30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework. In 2018, a Chilean non- profit conservation organization launched a land conserva- tion programme aiming to build long-term partnerships with private landowners to protect critical habitat for threa- tened amphibians in Chilean Patagonia. Here we describe a new locality record of the micro-endemic, Endangered Barrio’s frog Insuetophrynus acarpicus found at a site that joined the programme in 2020. Barrio’s frog is ranked 11th in the list of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endan- gered amphibians. Our systematic literature search showed that most aspects of the natural history and ecology of this species are unknown, limiting our ability to provide action- able science to inform its conservation. The newly described Barrio’s frog population is the eighth known locality of this species and one of only three occurring within a protected area. Habitat quality assessments indicated optimal condi- tions for most of the measured habitat parameters in the high-gradient stream where the species occurs. This case study illustrates that long-term partnerships between pri- vate landowners and conservationists can be used as an ef- fective tool to protect the habitat of highly threatened amphibians.
Keywords Amphibian conservation, Barrio’s frog, Chile, EDGE species, Insuetophrynus acarpicus, land conservation, Patagonia, Rhinodermatidae
The supplementary material for this article is available at
doi.org/10.1017/S0030605324000115
help contribute to the 30 by 30 target of the Global Biodiver- sity Framework (Cortés Capano et al., 2019; Dinerstein et al., 2019). In Chile, private initiatives are protecting at least 16,692 km2 of land (Moya Ramírez et al., 2016), covering key terrestrial ecosystems that are not protected by the na- tional system of public protected areas (Pliscoff & Fuentes- Castillo, 2011). Aiming to further increase the conservation value of private lands, in 2018 the NGO Ranita de Darwin designed and launched a land conservation programme to build long-term partnerships with private landowners and protect critical habitat for threatened amphibians in Chilean Patagonia (Azat et al., 2021). Here we describe a new locality record of the micro-endemic, Endangered Barrio’s frog Insuetophrynus acarpicus found in the Refugio de Ranitas Aldea del Viento protected area, a 7-ha property that joined the land conservation programme in 2020 (Plate 1a). This is the eighth known locality of this species and one of only three occurring within a protected area (Fig. 1). Barrio’s frog, along with the northern and southern
P
*Corresponding author,
andres.valenzuela-sanchez@
ioz.ac.uk 1Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK 2ONG Ranita de Darwin, Valdivia, Chile 3Fundación Escuela del Viento, Valdivia, Chile 4Cooperativa Calahuala, Valdivia, Chile 5Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics, University of Göttingen,
Göttingen, Germany 6Instituto de Conservación, Biodiversidad y Territorio, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
Received 5 September 2023. Revision requested 15 November 2023. Accepted 17 January 2024. First published online 11 March 2024.
Darwin’sfrogsRhinodermarufumand Rhinodermadarwinii, are the only knownmembers of the family Rhinodermatidae, a 70million year-old group of neotropical frogs considered to be the oldest known hyloids, a species-rich clade encompass- ing 54% of extant anuran species (Feng et al., 2017). Darwin’s frogs are highly threatened, particularly the northern Darwin’s frog, a species last seen over 40 years ago and categorized as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct) on the IUCN Red List (IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group, 2015). This situation highlights the importance of Barrio’s frog as one of the last representatives of the Rhinodermatidae. Barrio’s frog is one of the top 100 most evolutionarily distinct amphibian species (Jetz & Pyron, 2018) and is ranked 11th in the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) list of amphibians (Safi et al., 2013). This Chilean micro-endemic species is categorized as Endangered because of its limited geographical distribution (1,323 km2; Fig. 1), its highly isolated populations and the continuing decline in the extent and quality of its habitat (IUCNSSCAmphibian SpecialistGroup, 2018).Most aspects of the natural history and ecology of the species remain
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 50–53 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000115
rivate land conservation is an important approach that is increasingly utilized to protect biodiversity and can
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