Frogs of the Makuleke Contractual Park, northern Kruger National Park

Abstract

The Kruger National Park is the largest protected area in South Africa and one of the most extensively surveyed in sub-Saharan Africa. Scientific studies, passive sampling from rangers and citizen science records have resulted in comprehensive faunal species lists spanning the entire park. Albeit, numerous frog records from different sources exist, they reveal contrasting species assemblages for the northern reaches of the park. This inconsistency leads to problems in conducting ecological work and implementing conservation legislation, as the baseline data are not congruent across sources. This is problematic because the northern Kruger National Park is known as the Ramsar-declared Makuleke Wetland System. Although this system receives rigorous conservation efforts, there is a lack of a comprehensive and up-to-date list of frog species. In this study, we aimed to develop an updated regional baseline using a combination of published literature, citizen science and museum records, supplemented with active field surveys. Field surveys of the study region resulted in the identification of 18 species from 10 families of frogs. When combined with existing records, the Makuleke Contractual Park is expected to play host to at least 30 frog species. In addition to collating existing data into a single source, the field component of this study also revealed the first record of Tomopterna natalensis for the area during active surveys, reconfirmed the presence of several frogs, several of which have not been recorded in the region in over 50 years and provided the first confirmed national record of Afrixalus crotalus using phylogenetic reconstruction.

Conservation implications: Comprehensive species lists are fundamental for robust management protocols and ecological research. By collating data from multiple sources, this article presents an improved and updated frog list for the region, which will aid conservation, management and any long-term wetland ecosystem monitoring efforts in the region.