Decline of Common Toad populations in Flanders is not linked to surrounding landscape

This is an anonymized version of the dataset repository for the scientific paper titled "Decline of Common Toad populations in Flanders is not linked to surrounding landscape.". Once reviewed and published, this dataset will become open access. This study investigates trends of Common Toad populations in Flanders and assesses to which extent popultioan trends depend on general landscape variables. In the trend analysis, we used an Begin-End contrast to get an estimate of the overall trend. These values could then be used in the landscape analysis. Using proxies for land use change, heterogeneity and land use identity, we aimed to find effects of landscape variables on changes in Common Toad population trends. The main results are that 1) there is a main decline in toad populations in Flanders, which is consistent across Europe 2) None of the selected landscape variables were found to have a significant impact on toad population dynamics. This suggests that other factors such as climate change, disease, contaminants and loss of genetic diversity are likely to have a more significant impact on population dynamics. For conservation, this means that actions should prioritize specific land use characteristics rather than general land use and minimizing cumulative pressures as the decling is most likely driven by multiple factors.