Agradecimentos: Addison Wynn and Aline Benetti provided pictures from individuals housed at USNM and MZUSP, respectively. Francisco Alex, Kalidon Albuquerque, and Thiago Telatin Tognolo provided images and video recordings from wild frogs. Vanessa Verdade and José P. Pombal Jr. helped with some historical localities definitions. Mariana Retuci Pontes helped with data compilation. Joelma Prado for her assistance during Serra da Bocaina National Park expedition. All museum curators for allowing us access to data from specimens. We thank four anonymous reviewers for providing their thoughtful contributions to this manuscript. This study was registered at Sistema Nacional de Gestão do Patrimônio Genético e do Conhecimento Tradicional Associado (SISGen #A7248E2). This study was supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP #2016/25358-3; #2019/03170-0) and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq #302834/2020-6) Ver menos

Abstract: Amphibian populations are declining at unprecedented rates across the globe. Some declines occur in a short timeframe and are promptly detected, others are happening in a much slower pace, making them more difficult to detect. One approach that could revel these hidden declines is through analyses of individual historical records. Here, based on an extensive review including literature records, specimens deposited in scientific collections, and experts’ personal communication, we reviewed all available spatiotemporal records of our three taxa of interest, Ceratophrys aurita, Megaelosia spp., and Phantasmarana spp., with predominant distribution in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, a region with known amphibian population declines and extinctions. We found a sampling decline for Phantasmarana spp. in the decade of 1970, followed by concomitant declines for C. aurita and Megaelosia spp. during the 1980s. We found that these taxa were not resampled for more than 50 years in 50 % of the sites with historical records. Recent records for C. aurita are restricted to less than 30 % of its historical sites of occurrence. After the suggested declines, since 1990 all three taxa showed a certain level of sampling recovery, as it has been documented for populations of other anuran species in the Atlantic Forest. Our study reinforces the importance of species-focused exhaustive reviews to detect population fluctuation over time, one of the top priorities in animal conservation Ver menos