This long read is part of Unearthed’s Life Support project, in which we explore why the global nature crisis matters for our lives. Watch the 4-part film series here.

At London Zoo one week ago, frog experts from around the world gathered to discuss an emergency plan.

The crisis largely concerns chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease that is eating away the skin of amphibians – mostly frogs, but also toads and salamanders – at speed. In the last 50 years, from Europe to Africa to South America, mass mortality events have sent at least 90 species to global extinction, with 500 more experiencing dramatic declines.

But it’s not only ecologists that need to be worried about global amphibian declines, which are down not only to chytridiomycosis, but to chemical contamination, the exploitation of habitats, UVB radiation and climate change.

Amphibians are integral to their ecosystems. They are herbivores and carnivores, predator and prey. They link habitats on land with those in water. They provide food for birds, animals and snakes. They eat flies and mosquitoes that spread human diseases, from dengue fever to malaria. Their skin can have medical uses, and they have been useful to those studying the regeneration of limbs and organs.

They could even have a role to play in climate change: one study on salamanders showed that because they eat creatures like beetles, flies and ants, their presence in an ecosystem can lead to significantly more leaves on and in the soil, which means it can capture more carbon.

Fewer frogs also means fewer tadpoles, which means more algae (because they feed on it). Without tadpoles, dead algae can build up, creating layers of muck on the rocks, which can break loose, float downstream and contaminate water supplies.

Everything is connected in the natural world – and that includes us.