Barnard Senior Jamie Consuegra Is Among 14 Scholars to Coauthor Groundbreaking Study Linking Global Warming and Widespread Amphibian Extinctions
About two-thirds of over 110 species of brightly colored harlequin frogs, in the genus Atelopus, in the American tropics, have vanished since the 1980's. |
Senior environmental science major Jamie Consuegra is among 14 scholars who co-authored a groundbreaking study linking global warming and widespread amphibian extinctions in Central and South America. The report, which was published in Nature Magazine and covered by the New York Times and NPR, shows how a fungal epidemic caused by climate change has been killing off a colorful genus of harlequin frogs.. While scientists have long warned that global warming might lead to species extinctions, this study is the first to prove it. Of the paper’s 14 authors, Consuegra is the only undergraduate student.
Consuegra became involved in the study during a trip to study Spanish in Costa Rica in the summer of 2004. She offered to volunteer at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve and ended up assisting Alan Pounds, the preserve’s chief biologist and the study’s lead author. Over the following winter and summer breaks, she went back to Costa Rica to assist Pounds, helping him to analyze data and edit the report’s text. Consuegra also used the research for her thesis project at Barnard. She says that the wide range of courses she took in the Environmental Science department prepared her to be a part of this interdisciplinary study. In particular, Environmental Data Analysis taught by Martin Stute provided her with the background and knowledge to assist in the analysis of the amphibian data. She adds that the support she received from the professors in her department was invaluable.
The report has been hailed as a breakthrough, with widespread implications for the future of biodiversity.
“In a warmer world it's hard to know how disease dynamics may change,” Consuegra says. “It's even harder to predict what the impacts will be on plants, animals and humans. While this paper presents a solution for the "amphibian decline mystery" it may have frightening implications for the health of life on earth.”
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