The Global Amphibian Biodiversity Crisis

Watch the 4th Annual Public Lecture sponsored by the UCLA La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science at King Gillette Ranch in Malibu, California on April 7, 2013.

Since the late 1980s, amphibian biologists have noticed a disturbing fact: amphibians are disappearing even more rapidly than the rest of the world’s biodiversity. David Wake, more than any other person on earth, has used his lifelong commitment to amphibian biology to sound the alarm that amphibians are imperiled, and to promote research to unravel the reasons and develop solutions to stop the onslaught of global amphibian extinctions. Professor Wake received his Ph.D. at the University of Southern California, and has been a professor and curator of amphibians and reptiles at UC Berkeley since 1969. He has published more than 380 scientific papers, and has been a vocal spokesperson for amphibian conservation for over two decades. Dr. Wake is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, was Director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology for 27 years, and was elected into the US National Academy of Sciences in 1998.