Hypothesizing if responses to climate change affect herbicide exposure risk for amphibians

Pesticide use is well known to be detrimental for maintaining biodiversity in the agricultural landscape. Amphibians are especially affected by these agrochemicals. In particular, these animals’ high sensitivity was demonstrated for glyphosate-based herbicides which are dominating the world market today. Pesticide impacts are influenced by several co-stressors, and we for the first time link the exposure risk of amphibians to these commonly used pesticides to observed recent effects from ongoing climate change. In a simple verbal model, based on present-day data from Germany, we show that amphibian populations which have undergone phenological shift towards earlier reproduction potentially suffer less from applications of glyphosate-based herbicides compared to those which (yet) show no such reproductive shift. Although, apparently observed recent climate change effects lower the exposure risk, we advocate that amphibians are not necessarily safer now, mainly because farmers most likely will adapt their cultivation practices in the future if climate change becomes more obvious. Rather, we conclude that combining pesticide applications, climate change and phenological responses need an increased consideration in amphibian conservation. The results from our verbal model should be seen as a hypothesis that needs to be tested with specific field studies and (based on these data which are widely lacking today) more complex modelling of future exposure risk of pesticides to amphibians. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-014-0031-4 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-101951 Published Version Originally published at: Lötters, S; Filz, K J; Wagner, N; Schmidt, B R; Emmerling, C; Veith, M (2014). Hypothesizing if responses to climate change affect herbicide exposure risk for amphibians. Environmental Sciences Europe, 26(31):online. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-014-0031-4 DISCUSSION Open Access Hypothesizing if responses to climate change affect herbicide exposure risk for amphibians Stefan Lötters, Katharina J Filz, Norman Wagner, Benedikt R Schmidt, Christoph Emmerling and Michael Veith