Papua New Guinea was heavily impacted. There was an order of magnitude difference between the number of terrestrial clutches of eggs found per 5 x 5 m plot for baseline and ENSO drought data. The drought conditions negatively affect terrestrial breeders and direct developing frogs in New Guinea, almost entirely shutting down reproduction. We also found more frogs during VES transects at night during the low rainfall-ENSO period compared to our baseline data. This was the result of high numbers of normally rare or uncommon arboreal species descending from their arboreal sites, presumably because the drying effects were even more pronounced in above-ground microhabitats.
Frogs also appear to be at slightly higher densities near streams during the drought.
Work on long-term frog monitoring has been supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Miami, and the Biodiversity Conservation Network. I will return to Papua New Guinea and will continue to examine the on-going effects of the drought as well as other topics.