A Biodiversity Hotspot Built on Amphibians
The Western Ghats run for roughly 1,600 kilometres along India's western edge and hold more frog species per square kilometre than almost any other forest system on Earth. Of the approximately 180 amphibian species recorded there, around 65 percent exist nowhere else. Frogs are not incidental to this ecosystem. They sit at a middle tier of the food chain, eating insects that would otherwise overwhelm the forest floor and feeding the snakes, birds, and small mammals above them. When a frog population collapses, the ripple moves in both directions.
