About this book
This book provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the Andean herpetofauna, covering topics ranging from natural history and thermal ecology to biogeography and conservation. Extending over 8,900 kilometres across seven countries, the Andes represent one of the world's most exceptional biodiversity hotspots for amphibians and reptiles, including many endemic forms. This comprehensive volume presents the first integrative synthesis of Andean herpetofauna, organised into 18 chapters covering different disciplines. The first section focuses on diversity and distribution patterns across varied landscapes from humid Colombian paramos to arid central Andean punas. The second section explores evolutionary histories and life strategies, including viviparity, extended larval development, and physiological adaptations enabling species survival in harsh montane conditions. The third section examines ecological and physiological adaptation, including cold tolerance mechanisms, thermal biology, and freeze resistance in high-altitude environments. The fourth section addresses conservation challenges and emerging threats, including infectious diseases, climate change impacts, and critical knowledge gaps hindering effective conservation planning. It will be an invaluable resource for researchers, students, and conservation scientists interested in the biology and conservation of amphibians and reptiles inhabiting these remarkable montane ecosystems.
Contents
- Prologue
- The Andes: the physical setting
- Beyond species richness: a behavioural perspective of the anuran diversity in the Andes of Colombia
- Functional diversity of amphibians and reptiles in tropical dry forest remnants and anthropogenic cover types in the Lower Bogota River sub-basin (Department of Cundinamarca, Colombia)
- Biogeographic patterns of richness and endemism in Liolaemidae: identifying hotspots for the most diverse Andean reptile radiation
- The climatic niche evolution of South American squamates (Reptilia: Squamata)
- The shared evolutionary history of South America's mountain biotas: Genetic evidence from amphibians and reptiles
- Anurans of the Patagonian Andes: a little-known variety of reproductive and developmental strategies
- Unveiling Patagonian Lizards: A Three-Decade Journey through Ecology, Evolution, and Adaptation in a Changing World
- Drivers of physiological responses and range distribution in the context of Rapaport's rule: The case of East Andean Liolaemidae lizard species
- Physiological ecology of Andean amphibians associated with freezing temperatures
- Thermal biology of squamate reptiles in the high mountains of the Northern Andes
- Thermal Adaptations in Tropical Andean Amphibians: Exploring Spatial Variability and Global Change Impacts
- Emerging infectious diseases of amphibians in the Andean region: An analysis pointing out the limits of current knowledge and underscored topics in which additional research is necessary
- Diversity and extinction risk of Colombian Andean amphibians across life regions
- Experiences in conservation planning for amphibians in the Andean region
- Andean snakes: understanding biodiversity knowledge shortfalls
- Herpetofauna of the Andes: A critical synthesis
Customer Reviews
Biography
J. Nicolás Urbina-Cardona is an ecologist from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia who obtained his PhD in Biological Sciences from UNAM, Mexico. His research focuses on how human-induced landscape alterations affect neotropical amphibian and reptile assemblages, integrating approaches from community ecology, functional ecology, and landscape ecology. Early in his career, he worked with a conservation NGO contributing to biodiversity conservation public policy, including biodiversity offsets and watershed management plans. For the past 14 years, Dr Urbina-Cardona has served as associate professor at the Departamento de Ecologia y Territorio, Facultad de Estudios Ambientales y Rurales of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, where he teaches biodiversity conservation and herpetology. He held the position of regional chair for Colombia of the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group for a decade, coordinating extinction risk assessments for over 800 species and facilitating their adoption by the Colombian government. He also worked toward consolidating the National Program for the Conservation of Amphibians with the Ministry of Environment and supported updates to the IUCN's Global Amphibian Conservation Action Plan. Nicolas has published more than 120 scientific articles and book chapters, co-advised 45 PhD and Master's students, and serves as associate editor for three scientific journals in conservation biology. Recently, he has expanded his interests to include scientific communication and outreach.
Carlos A. Navas is a biologist from Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, an institution where he also obtained a master's degree. Since these early steps, he has engaged in researching amphibian adaptation to high elevation, also a central topic in his PhD thesis at the University of Connecticut. He moved to Brazil, originally to occupy a postdoctoral position at the University of São Paulo and was later hired at the Department of Physiology at the Biosciences Institute. In Brazil, Carlos expanded research interests to other models and systems, including arthropods and reptiles, mostly developing projects at the disciplinary convergence among behaviour, physiology, and ecology. Carlos has published about 200 scientific texts, including peer-reviewed articles, natural history notes, and book chapters, and has advised or co-advised about 25 doctoral students, nationally and internationally. He has occupied administrative positions at his institution, mainly in the context of graduate studies and outreach, and has composed the editorial boards of several journals in the areas of herpetology, physiology, and general science. Carlos maintains his interest in Physiological Ecology, but currently explores other aspects of science, including the perks and pains of interdisciplinary research, and the communication of science to young audiences.
Alessandro Catenazzi's research interests are the systematics and conservation of Neotropical amphibians and reptiles and the ecological dimensions of biodiversity. For the first line of research, he works primarily in the Andes and the Amazon. He collaborates with colleagues in museums and other research institutions in describing new species and developing phylogenies of frogs from the mega-diverse eastern slopes of the Andes. He is interested in using phylogenies as a road map to compare physiological traits among species. He is also studying thermal preferences, tolerance to heat, and the influence of temperature on physiological functions, to understand how climate warming will affect these animals. Finally, a major theme of his current research is exploring fungal diseases' effects on amphibians' ecology, a group experiencing staggering biodiversity losses worldwide. After documenting the collapse of a species-rich amphibian assemblage, he is interested in developing strategies to mitigate the impact of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis on surviving species.
Carla Piantoni earned her Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the Universidad Nacional del Comahue in San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina, and her PhD in Sciences at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Between degrees, she worked as a Research Assistant at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, where her herpetological research overlapped with studies on marine sponges under Dr Klaus Rutzler, Research Zoologist and Curator of Porifera. During this period, she also edited the Annual Reports of the Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CCRE) and co-authored several publications on the ecology and systematics of marine sponges and other invertebrates. Throughout the years, her initial interest in the life history and thermal ecology of lizards expanded to include experimental approaches in behavioural ecology and evolutionary ecophysiology of ectothermic animals, culminating in research on how individual variability in behaviour and eco-physiological preferences may shape responses to novel environments. Currently, Dr Piantoni is based at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, where she balances her research with mentoring graduate students, teaching, and coordinating first-year biology labs in the School of Life Sciences. Guiding young students in developing critical thinking has proven to be a significant responsibility, but an exceptionally fulfilling aspect of her academic role.
