Effect of Agricultural Pesticides and Land Use Intensification on Amphibian Larval Development

Abstract

The increase in human population had to increase the demand for vital resources, including food, generating intensive and extractive exploitation, and impacting natural ecosystems and biodiversity. Land degradation of ecosystems is a serious and widespread problem in the world. The expansion of the agricultural frontier is by direct or indirect human-induced processes, expressed as long-term reduction or loss of biodiversity. The expansion and industrialization of agriculture had been negatively affected by soil fertility, the climate, biogeochemical cycles, bodies of water, and loss of biodiversity on different spatiotemporal scales. Intensive agriculture, in the form of monocultures, is subjected to strict pest controls for the use of highly toxic agrochemicals. Pesticides are used in monocultures by spraying aqueous dilutions. Knowing the toxic effect of pesticides and agrochemicals on amphibians is very important. These animals have special ecophysiological conditions because they have biphasic life cycles composed of an embryonic and larval aquatic development stage and the adult stage in humid terrestrial environments. For these reasons, the amphibians have been observed with increased mortality rates, reduced prey availability, and affected growth rates.