Methods for Monitoring of Amphibians and Monitoring Programmes in Foreign Countries

Amphibians, an integral part of biodiversity, are very sensitive to any changes in environment, so that they can be used as indicator species for environmental monitoring. It is essential to monitor amphibians because they are threatened environmentally worldwide recently. A detailed introduction is presented here to indicators, timing and frequency of amphibian monitoring, and main methods as well, including visual encounter surveys, transect sampling, surveys at breading sites, calling surveys, straight-line drift fences and pitfall traps, artificial cover and mark-pecapture, of which applicability and limitations were analyzed separately. Two foreign programmes of amphibian monitoring, i.e. Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative of US and National Amphibian and Reptile Recording Scheme of UK have been introduced.