Conservation beyond protected areas: what is known about amphibians in agroforests?
Reconciling food production with biodiversity is a major global challenge, and agroforestry offers a promising path. This systematic review synthesizes 79 studies documenting 313 amphibian species in agroforests across 19 countries. Coffee and cocoa systems dominated the literature and supported many threatened and restricted‑range species. Biodiverse, traditionally managed agroforests showed the strongest conservation outcomes, often outperforming monocultures. Canopy structure and litter depth were the most influential habitat attributes. Despite clear potential, major gaps remain, including limited research in megadiverse regions and few comparisons with grain or tree monocultures. Findings highlight agroforests as valuable habitats for amphibians while underscoring the need for expanded, comparative research.
Subject Tags
- Agroforestry
- Biodiversity
- Wildlife
Abstract
One of humanity’s major dilemmas lies in reconciling food production with biodiversity conservation. Agriculture is a leading threat to biodiversity, but agroforestry emerges as a potential solution to this impasse. In an agroforestry system, woody perennial trees are intentionally used with crops or animals on the same land. These systems can range from very simplified setups to arrangements with a higher ecological complexity. Since amphibians are the most threatened vertebrate group, we conducted a systematic review to evaluate the accumulated knowledge about amphibians in agroforests. Our search focused on peer-reviewed articles indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Seventy-nine studies met our criteria, documenting 313 amphibian species in agroforests across 19 countries. More than half of these species (51.8%) have distribution ranges that overlap with protected areas by less than 10.0%. Coffee and cocoa agroforests were the most prominent systems and had the highest number of studies and amphibian species, including threatened and restricted-range species. The agroforests with the best outcomes were biodiverse and often employed traditional management practices. Although the number of studies comparing agroforests and monocultures remains limited, available data suggests that agroforests tend to support a greater diversity of amphibian species, including more species with restricted ranges and a higher proportion of threatened species. The most studied agroforest attributes were the canopy and litter layer, both of which significantly influenced amphibian richness, abundance and diversity. This data reveals the potential of agroforests, especially those under traditional management and classified as biodiverse, to provide habitat for amphibian species of particular conservation interest. However, our review identified several gaps: a limited number of studies in megadiverse countries, insufficient studies evaluating the influence of management intensity and productivity of agroforests on amphibians, and a shortage of comparative studies with other production forms such as grain and tree monocultures.
Citation
Volkmer, G., Biasotto, L. D., Thiesen Brum, F., & Borges-Martins, M. (2025). Conservation beyond protected areas: what is known about amphibians in agroforests?. Biodiversity and Conservation, 1-31. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-025-03184-w
TNC Authors
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Fernanda Thiesen Brum
Spatial Prioritization Scientist
The Nature Conservancy
Email: fernanda.brum@tnc.org