It’s not easy being green, as a famous frog once sang — and in recent decades, just surviving has become even harder for frogs and other amphibians.
They are experiencing a 3.79 percent average annual decline in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which notes on its website that “if this rate remains unchanged, some species will disappear from half of the habitats they occupy in about 20 years.” Those habitats — particularly the wetlands frogs use for breeding — are disappearing, too, according to Mike Benard, the interim biology department chair at Case Western Reserve University whose research focuses on amphibian ecology.
