This book, intended for both a scientific and informed lay audience, summarizes the big picture of scientific understanding of amphibian population decline and its probable causes. Both Collins, a professor at Arizona State University, and Crump, an adjunct professor at Northern Arizona University, have published extensively on amphibian biology and the enormous challenge posed by the decline of so many amphibian species.

Because I know the passion that the authors have for the subject, I was impressed first with the organization of the book, and then with the level line of logic that they followed. Facts and data, supported with citations (even though in a rather obtuse format) and emphasized with bulleted lists, current scientific opinion, and cogent syntheses, were standard. The many kinds of hyperbole that could have crept into such a discourse found no place in this book, and the authors analyzed information without lapsing into undue scientific terminology. Their style was surely intentional, and it certainly was the only one that would allow a variety of readers with inherent biases to read the book productively.

The font style and size of this sturdy book worked well with my old eyes, and the organization served to introduce, present, and summarize the complicated problem at hand. Some of the punctuation seemed odd, and I smiled when I noticed that one of the authors had pointed out a verb-subject disagreement in a quotation. I recommend this book to anyone who wants an informative read that will allow him or her to understand the problem discussed as well as gain a perspective on how biological scientists proceed with their pursuits.

Even so, there were points in the text where I hoped for more discussion, or at least a little more punch to the authors' presentations, particularly of “why” questions. “Reproductive characteristics and time of breeding… are unknown for a large proportion of amphibians,” Collins and Crump write. In fact, basic information such as longevity and age at first reproduction could not be found for 33 to 50 percent of 60 common species of amphibians from the southeastern United States in a recent data compilation (Susan Walls, US Geological Survey, Gainesville, Florida, personal communication); the current attitude that natural history is passé inhibits a full understanding of many biological studies. Actually, nothing-from the details of a species' developmental genetics to the number of eggs it lays—makes total sense if we cannot understand how the organisms live their lives. “Finally, from an ethics standpoint, we are obliged to respect and protect amphibians,” Collins and Crump suggest. Even with all the information provided, I would bet that many people will not see why they are obliged to do so; ethical arguments have to compete with hamburgers, blankets, and a new house in a flood-prone area.

Likewise, although this book was not the venue to discuss the modern mode of scientific progression, I would have liked to see a bit more emphasis on the research philosophies needed to solve this problem. For example, some herpetologists are exceedingly well equipped to study the biology of amphibians, but quite superficially prepared to study the interactions of amphibians and a fungus. The immediate and paramount demand for research integration and collaboration was not emphasized in the book to the degree I would have liked. I do not see a high level of interaction of amphibian biologists with epidemiologists and fungal biologists. Considering that a pathogen is involved in many of the declines, there are amazingly few studies of relevant amphibian immunology, and I think that this is an example of the failure of the model system of research. Much of the data on amphibian immunology is based on two model species (Carey et al. 1999), chosen because they are easily cultured and not because they are examples with potentially widespread impact on our immunological understanding. Phylogeny, not ease of culturing, should be our focal point.

Examples from other fields of study illustrate the benefits of research integration. It seems that it took the advent of molecular genetics to marry evolutionary and developmental biologists, and the flourishing concept of “evo-devo” was then born. The burgeoning field of bioinspired research, a philosophically laborious union of biologists and engineers, is starting to produce viable products (e.g., gecko tape based on the morphology of gecko toe pads). It struck me as a sad comment on the state of the integration of biological research that Cooke and Suski (2008) wrote, “There is growing recognition that opportunities exist to use physiology as part of the conservation and management of populations and ecosystems.” The interaction of an organism's physiology with its environment is an elementary tenet of biology, so why did Cooke and Susuki feel compelled to suggest that this integration would surely be productive? Our overly partitioned, nonintegrated views of research, which often put it before phylogeny, may be our worst enemy. I support the very unpopular view that we should return to a concept of “biologist,” or perhaps something of even wider scope, in the hope of gaining broad understanding. Integration of research efforts would then be more likely to occur by default. Yet the structures and goals of institutions and funding agencies force research into smaller, internally focused units.

In the last paragraph of the book the authors ask several questions about how humans will react to the loss of biodiversity, what these losses say about conditions on Earth, and what our role might be as custodians of this planet. The pessimism of my answers made me cringe, but I nonetheless came away with some intact optimism, or at least satisfaction from seeing the full scope of the problem. Fighting an ecological problem with ecology is the only viable option, and there are some recent studies that point toward ways to combat Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, an apparent principal cause of many amphibian declines. They may offer small sparkles of hope (e.g., Woodhams et al. 2007, Lu et al. 2009).