78 ROLLING STONEROLLING STONE
COQUÍ HABITAT North Caribbean islands THREAT Temperature rise
Anyone who’s been to
Puerto Rico knows the
insistent chirp of the
coquí, a singsong trill
that echoes through the
warm island air, espe-
cially at night. What you
might not know, unless
you’re a herpetologist, is
that the tiny frog, about
the size of a ping-pong
ball, is fast disappear-
ing. Among the 17species of coquí native
to Puerto Rico, three
are already extinct,
and 13 are considered
endangered or at-risk.
And in recent years, the
coquí’s signature call —
which sounds just like
its name — has actually
been an alarm: A 2014
study found that as
temperatures in Puerto
Rico have risen, coquís’bodies have gotten
smaller and their chirps
higher-pitched. This
seemingly innocuous
modification could
ultimately make it more
difficult for females to
recognize mating calls,
causing an already frag-
ile population to decline
even faster. Sadly, the
news is part and parcel
of sweeping changesin the amphibian world,
whose vulnerable
species, dependent on
both land and water
habitats, have been on
the decline for decades.
Last year, scientists
announced that climate
change had enabled a
disease in the common
frog that could wipe out
entire populations in the
next 50 years.CLIMATE CRISIS
ON THE EVE OF
EXTINCTION
The effects of climate change on the natural world are devastating, with
as many as 1 million species at risk of disappearing in the coming decadesI
N 1996, a biologist named Camille
Parmesan observed that an obscure
breed of butterfly living in the
Western mountain ranges of the
U.S. — the Edith’s checkerspot — had
shifted its migratory range about 60
miles north in search of cooler tem-
peratures. It was one of the first studies
to document “the fingerprints of climate
change,” as Parmesan put it — evidence
that global warming was being felt in the
animal kingdom. Twenty-four years later,
these ripple effects are so common, says
Wendy Foden of the International Union
for the Conservation of Nature, they’re
barely even publicized. In 2016, Foden and
other scientists took inventory of climate
change’s impact on our entire ecosystem,
and found that 83 percent of all biological
processes had already been altered.
Foden calls these dramatic changes the
“bootprints of climate change.”
Global warming has set off a cascade
of disruptions to the web of life, changing
animals’ breeding habits, food supply, and
their very DNA. They are in distress not
only from climate instability but also from
the loss of habitat and pollution produced
by unchecked human consumption. In the
past century, species have been wiped
out at a pace 100 times greater than the
natural rate of extinction, and as many
as 1 million species are at risk of going
extinct in the coming decades, accord-
ing to a United Nations report released
last spring. There is perhaps no better
bellwether of the peril we face than this
dwindling biodiversity. “The evidence is
crystal clear,” said Sandra Díaz, one of the
co-chairs of the U.N. report. “Nature is in
trouble. Therefore, we are in trouble.”ILLUSTRATIONS BY LISEL JANE ASHLOCK
BY ANDREA MARKS & HANNAH MURPHY