However, with seasonal temperature increasing and agriculture intensification, these habitats are becoming more and more rare, They get dried out, bushes and small trees find a suitable niche and these humid habitats tend to disappear.
Of course, predators of amphibians are birds, mammals but also reptiles. A well common reptile amphibian-predator is the grass snake (Natrix natrix, Fig. D). The species is also called the water snake. It feeds on amphibians, therefore it is frequently founds in amphibian habitats.

The Red List listed E. orbicularis as
"Near Threatened". In Switzerland, this species is listed as "Critically Endangered". In Switzerland, this species was present only in Geneva, before 2010. Studies have shown that the unique population was composed of very few strains. Afterwards, the government decided to grow the population in different cantons of Switzerland. Until today, individuals were released in the wild to bring genetic diversity.

Source : www.karch.ch ; www.iucnredlist.org ; Meyer, Andreas, et al. Les amphibiens et les reptiles de Suisse. Haupt, 2009

The plateau is the most complex situation. It is mainly exploited for agriculture use. Several lacs and streams flow through the plateau, leading to humid meadows and ponds within Central Switzerland. This is valid information maybe 50 years ago. With globalization, agriculture has become more intense leading to habitat fragmentation (ponds are isolated one from the other), habitat degradation (having the small reserve near urbanization brings pollution in these natural environments) and habitat loss (agriculture land for cattle establishing in wetlands). As discussed in the resources, the herpetofauna relies on these humid environments as niches. Displacing their niche might bring them to extinction. In the canton of Neuchâtel, only one swamp is known to have Vipera berus. The number of wetlands is drastically decreasing, leading to amphibian biodiversity endangerment.

Climate change is also observed by people in Switzerland, however the link between climate change and its effect on biodiversity is not always acknowledged. Today, climate change can be measured between the years as when the snow falls. Today, it has been displaced for about two weeks. Species must adapt to this change by finding enough resources until hibernation. This might disrupt the life cycle of animals, which might induce high level of stress and die.

More than 75% of Switzerland’s amphibians and reptiles are on Red List of Switzerland. Therefore, the government has established different strategies for conservation which is applied differently in each canton. In Neuchâtel, several strategies are known:

Source : www.karch.ch ; discussions with herpetologues

Madagascar is an important area in terms of anthropogenic culture and biodiversity. However, nowadays it is difficult to have a balance between both features. Therefore, we must join socialists, scientists, politicians and economists to create action plans for Madagascar’s biodiversity. By doing this, we will have an important pressure point on the government.

A proposed action plan would initiate with scientists worldwide studying different taxa of biodiversity in Madagascar, to have the ecological background of these species. After linking the interactions with their environment and other species, we must compute the changes with previous data, and describe the effects of anthropogenic factors and climate change on the variation of the features of interests. Now socialists and politicians join in by studying the impact of this variation of human welfare. To do so, they must see the interactions biodiversity has with human activity: contact with local population, biodiversity affecting animal and plant crops, disease transmission, etc. By comparing with previous data, we might also prove how anthropogenic factors and climate are indirectly affecting their wellbeing. 

After building such a complexes framework, all must join with politicians to discuss legal modification and new propositions to the government. By doing this, the “top of the pyramid is controlled” and Madagascar’s biodiversity might see conservation arising in a promising and sustainable way. However, biodiversity is not only about maintaining the number of species of individuals high. We cannot do this without having a home for them. We must concentrate effort and finances in conserving habitats and their natural environment. After that, species might even establish by themselves without any human activity. 

 

ProNatura is an organization built to protect Swiss biodiversity. It has projects within the entire country. One of them is the protection of amphibian migration. They focus efforts on building tunnels for amphibians to cross roads, but also monitor species at the same time. However, tunnels are not always easy to build with national authorities.

To avoid amphibians to cross the road, we install barriers for amphibians on the side of the roads. Thus, during migration, a high concentration of amphibians is found near the roads. Our volunteers goal is to pick up the amphibians into buckets, count them, identify the species, sex ratio and other features, then release them on the other side of the road. This is a simple task, consequently brining an interesting scientific approach as a volunteer. Knowledge about frog, toad, newts and salamander species is acquired during this volunteer work. We will attend school (awareness at the youngest age), college and universities, and the public for them to volunteer in this project. This broad spectrum of people with bring volunteers but also awareness about the herpetofauna and their value to biodiversity.