Abiologist used the internet to contact scientists around the world to obtain information about declining amphibian populations. he was able to gather data on 936 populations of amphibians, consisting of 157 species from 37 countries. results showed that the overall numbers of amphibians dropped 15% a year from 1960 to 1966 and continued to decline about 2% a year through 1997. what is the importance of collecting an extensive amount of data such as this?