Global Amphibian Extinction Risk Assessment for the Panzootic Chytrid Fungus

Abstract

Species are being lost at increasing rates due to anthropogenic effects, leading to the recognition that we are witnessing the onset of a sixth mass extinction. Emerging infectious disease has been shown to increase species loss and any attempts to reduce extinction rates need to squarely confront this challenge. Here, we develop a procedure for identifying amphibian species that are most at risk from the effects of chytridiomycosis by OPEN ACCESSDiversity 2009, 1 53 combining spatial analyses of key host life-history variables with the pathogen's predicted distribution. We apply our rule set to the known global diversity of amphibians in order to prioritize species that are most at risk of loss from disease emergence. This risk assessment shows where limited conservation funds are best deployed in order to prevent further loss of species by enabling ex situ amphibian salvage operations and focusing any potential disease mitigation projects.

Design and Analysis of Ranavirus Studies: Surveillance and Assessing Risk

“…The area could be a population of interest, such as one that contains an uncommon species that is susceptible to ranavirus, or it could be a geographic region or country (Rödder et al 2009;OIE 2014). Generally, areas are defined based on artificial or natural barriers to animal movement or pathogen translocation (OIE 2014).…”

Ecophysiology meets conservation: understanding the role of disease in amphibian population declines

“…At a global scale, climatic factors-most notably patterns of temperature and precipitation-have been correlated with disease susceptibility [18,27,178]. Environmental factors may also alter pathogen growth and development [117,119] as well as behavioural, ecological and physiological responses of hosts [30,116].…”

Can protected mountain areas serve as refuges for declining amphibians? Potential threats of climate change and amphibian chytridiomycosis in an alpine amphibian population

“…Bd is spreading quickly to new regions, probably assisted by commercial amphibian trade (Garner et al 2006;Picco & Collins 2008), and can cause rapid population declines and disappearances in many amphibian species (Berger et al 1998;Bosch et al 2001;Lips et al 2006). For the Alps, climatic models predict Bd to be absent from high altitude sites because of low temperatures (Rödder et al 2009), however, data on the occurrence of chytridiomycosis in alpine amphibians is still lacking. Bd has been detected in lowland amphibian populations of Switzerland and Austria (Schmidt pers.…”

“…To what extent chytridiomycosis will affect alpine amphibian populations in the future remains largely unknown. Climate models predict high elevation sites in the Austrian Alps to be too cold for Bd to occur (Rödder et al 2009), however, infected I. alpestris have recently been found at an altitude of 1 630 m in western Austria (Glaser & Sztatecsny unpubl.). The spread of Bd to higher elevation sites may just be a matter of time and could be accelerated by increasing temperatures.…”