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Thomasset's rock frog (Sooglossus thomasseti)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 172515128

Developing a conservation strategy for sooglossid frogs: assessment, monitoring, and building capacity to mainstream long-term action.

Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation (Project No. 172515128) - Thomasset's rock frog - Awarded $24,510 on May 18, 2017

1. Through in-country partnerships and in-situ training, develop capacity for NGO staff/volunteers, and university students, empowering them to monitor, protect, and conserve, Seychelles unique biodiversity.

2. Establish a long term multi-island population monitoring programme for sooglossid frogs (as a direct result of objective 1.), ensuring that conservation management continues beyond the MBZ-funded two-year scope of the project, and is ultimately directed by in-country expertise.

3. Document the extent of occurrence of multi-distributed sooglossid frogs, and identify environmental and climate influencing factors on seasonal range shifts. The resultant data can be combined, mapped, and modelled with ground-truthed habitat information and presence/absence data to identify range contractions and expansions, and extinction risk under various climate induced scenarios.

4. Conduct DNA sampling of populations to estimate effective population size, understand population dynamics, and conduct population viability analyses.

5. Undertake disease screening of amphibians to monitor the global amphibian pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), cause of lethal chytridiomycosis (chytrid).

6. Incorporating data from this project, conduct a systematic review to develop a strategic conservation action plan for sooglossid frogs.

7. To significantly enhance our knowledge and understanding of the ecology and inter- and intra-specific relationships of these globally significant, insular amphibians.

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