Data from: Amphibian responses to livestock use of wetlands: new empirical data and a global review

Pastureland currently occupies 26% of Earth’s ice-free land surface. As
the global human population continues to increase and developing countries
consume more protein-rich diets, the amount of land devoted to livestock
grazing will only continue to rise. To mitigate the loss of global
biodiversity as a consequence of the ever-expanding amount of land
converted from native habitat into pastureland for livestock grazing, an
understanding of how livestock impact wildlife is critical. While previous
reviews have examined the impact of livestock on a wide variety of taxa,
there have been no reviews examining how global livestock grazing affects
amphibians. We conducted both an empirical study in south-central Florida
examining the impact of cattle on amphibian communities and a quantitative
literature review of similar studies on five continents. Our empirical
study analyzed amphibian community responses to cattle as both a binary
(presence/absence) variable, and as a continuous variable based on cow pie
density. Across all analyses, we were unable to find any evidence that
cattle affected the amphibian community at our study site. The literature
review returned 46 papers that met our criteria for inclusion. Of these
studies, 15 found positive effects of livestock on amphibians, 21 found
neutral/mixed effects, and 10 found negative effects. Our quantitative
analysis of these data indicates that amphibian species that historically
occurred in closed-canopy habitats are generally negatively affected by
livestock presence. In contrast, open-canopy amphibians are likely to
experience positive effects from the presence of livestock, and these
positive effects are most likely to occur in locations with cooler
climates and/or greater precipitation seasonality. Collectively, our
empirical work and literature review demonstrate that under the correct
conditions well-managed rangelands are able to support diverse assemblages
of amphibians. These rangeland ecosystems may play a critical role in
protecting future amphibian biodiversity by serving as an “off-reserve”
system to supplement the biodiversity conserved within traditional
protected areas.