Biodiversity of Southeast Asian frogs

Amphibians in large numbers

For years, the Herpetology Department has regularly organised expeditions to Malaysia and the island of Borneo. The herpetofauna of the Southeast Asian rainforests is still partly unknown. Inventories of national parks in particular are increasingly yielding complete species inventories. Special attention is also being paid to the little-known larval forms. Taxonomic identification and recording is the main focus, but we are also interested in the reproductive biology of the species and the habitat requirements of frogs and their larvae. Genetic methods for the identification of larvae in comparison with the frogs and differentiation of the species among each other play an important role (DNA barcoding). The aim of future research is to document and better understand the phylogeny of Asian frogs and the distribution of their species communities in the tropical rainforest.