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A tale of threatened frogs:

demonstrating the value of

long-term monitoring

Graeme R. Gillespie, David Hunter, Greg Hollis, Benjamin C.

Scheele and Matt West

Summary

This chapter presents case studies of long-term monitoring programs for
threatened frog species in Australia. It evaluates how species recovery programs
have benefited from monitoring by comparison with a selection of other threatened
frog species that have had limited or no monitoring. It then examines the
circumstances and drivers that brought about these population monitoring
programs and enabled their long-term persistence. Species with long-term
monitoring benefited in numerous ways compared with those without, including:
maintaining up-to-date knowledge of distribution and conservation status; robust
population modelling and predictive capability, and risk assessment; sound
understanding of threats and how to tackle these; and the ability to evaluate
intervention outcomes. Commonalities among these successful long-term