Mongabay Newscast

Why are salamanders so incredibly diverse in the United States? Among other things, a fluke of geography contributed to making it the global hotspot of salamander diversity. But now, another pandemic is on the march toward the U.S., and this time it's got salamanders in its sights. In this second special episode about salamanders, we'll give you the full context. How big a role do these ubiquitous animals play in the environment, and what would it mean to forest biodiversity, climate change, and forest food chains to lose whole populations of salamanders? This second bonus episode of the podcast tackles these important questions with Senior Editor Morgan Erickson-Davis, who produced Mongabay's series on this topic for the website last year.  For the next several episodes, this special podcast series (made possible by our Patreon supporters) called Mongabay Explores will dive into this topic to learn what's known about this issue, now.  More resources on this topic: On the hunt for a silent salamander-killer