Meet the harlequin frog, another victim of climate change

This is getting worse and worse. And more and more shameful. The polar bear is a victim of climate change, as we have seen, and now The New York Times is reporting this:

Scientists studying a fast-dwindling genus of colorful harlequin frogs on misty mountainsides in Central and South America are reporting today that global warming is combining with a spreading fungus to kill off many species.

The researchers implicate global warming, as opposed to local variations in temperature or other conditions. Their conclusion is based on their finding that patterns of fungus outbreaks and extinctions in widely dispersed patches of habitat were synchronized in a way that could not be explained by chance.

If the analysis holds up, it will be the first to link recent climate changes to the spread of a fungus lethal to frogs and salamanders and their kin. The chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, has devastated amphibian communities in many parts of the world over the last several decades.

To be fair, "experts on amphibian disease and ecology are divided over the finding". However, something is clearly wrong in the tropical world of the harlequin frog, where "two-thirds of [more than 110 species] have vanished since the 1980's". Quite likely a sign that "warming caused by human activity [is] disrupting ecology".

Surely the harlequin frog deserves better. And certainly we humans should be doing better to halt our destructive behaviour.