Support Amphibian Conservation Research — Institute for Wildlife Studies

Help us understand and address the conservation needs of amphibians along the California coast!

Located more than 250 km north of San Francisco, California's "Lost Coast" is a rugged stretch of coastline within the King Range National Conservation Area. The steep, rocky slopes of this region make it one of the most remote and undeveloped portions of the California coast, with most of the area accessible only by hiking trail. The Institute for Wildlife Studies recently completed, An assessment of aquatic amphibian biodiversity on the California Lost Coast, which identified multiple species across this portion of the King Range conservation area.

The study also revealed that there were many data gaps in the eDNA library where fewer sequences were available for some of the genetic fragments found. This made it difficult to properly identify some of the samples and therefore no reliable ecological information could be applied to a particular species. As pressure from anthropogenic stressors becomes increasingly common, it becomes more difficult to collect baseline information from healthy amphibian communities.

Learn more about the project and our mission here

Our goal is to gather additional amphibian DNA that will enable us to build a more robust eDNA library. The DNA will then be available for use in future studies of ecological factors contributing to amphibian population declines.

Click the donate button above for your contribution to amphibian research.

Giant Salamander -Dicamptodon sp.

Within the next half century, it is expected that amphibians will lose as many as one third of their total population. This makes it increasingly imperative to collect data on these species and to study the ecological factors relating to their population decline. By building a more robust eDNA library, a larger amount of information becomes readily available for developing conservation methods and monitoring species populations.

Donations for this campaign will be used to collect and sequence DNA for species of Amphibians along portions of the California coast. In the event that the funds exceed or do not reach the target goal, funds generated will be used towards wildlife conservation initiatives and other IWS projects.