Social media video featuring the project.
The Danube crested newt, Triturus dobrogicus (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Adnan Zimić
Other projects
23 Mar 2017
Living on Cultivated Surfaces: The Importance of Amphibian Species in Lowland Agroecosystems of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Project aims to assess the distribution, describe morphological characters, define status of endangerment and to develop protection/monitoring program in B&H for Triturus dobrogicus.
Triturus dobrogicus is one of the rarest amphibian species in B&H.; Its area of distribution is limited to the Pannonian area of the country (5% of the state) which is mentioned only in sporadic and rare literature data. Their severely fragmented wetlands habitats are result of high anthropogenic impacts. No biological data are known in B&H; for this species; it has no conservation status nor legal protected.
The project has four main interconnected activities:
(1) education
(2) promotion
(3) research
(4) field work.
The primary activity within education is to give presentation throughout B&H; mainly for young people and elders in order to raise public awareness of this unknown resource. Within the research and field work segment of the project, we will perform: distribution analysis, morphological analysis, etological analysis, environmental analysis and extinction risk assessment analyses.
Defining crucial ecological factors together with distribution data, will enable to define a suitable, stable and functional long – term monitoring system and protection program. We will conduct ecological and morphological analyses on captured individuals. DNA tissue will be collected for future DNA analyses in order to reveal specific phylogeographic lineages and hybrid zones. Big attention will be given to the definition of anthropogenic impacts on the existing populations. All these data have are crucial for developing a functional and active protection strategy that will be the contribution of these analysed data. Risk Assessment, based on IUCN categorisation, will be a result of above mentioned activities and represents the first assessment of species conservation status based on IUCN criteria in B&H.;
One of the main conservation outputs of this project is government pressure. We will make a report in which the needed area for protection will be defined with additional accompanying information. The report will be sent to local authorities from both entities (FB&H; and RS) were it should be further processed. This aspect of the project concerns direct communication with authorised ministries from both entities regarding the protection issue. This project is also one of the first steps to concretisation of NATURA 2000 concept in B&H; – mini pilot project.