Differences in Fungal Disease Dynamics in Co-occurring Terrestrial and Aquatic Amphibians
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Ó 2020 EcoHealth Alliance
Original Contribution
Differences in Fungal Disease Dynamics in Co-occurring Terrestrial and Aquatic Amphibians Carla M. Sette ,1 Vance T. Vredenburg,2 and Andrew G. Zink2 1
University of California, Santa Cruz, EEB/CBB mailstop, UCSC/Coastal Biology Building, 130 McAllister Way, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 San Francisco State University, San Francisco
2
Abstract: The fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has devastated biodiversity and ecosystem health and is implicated as a driver of mass amphibian extinctions. This 100-year study investigates which environmental factors contribute to Bd prevalence in a fully terrestrial species, and determines whether infection patterns differ between a fully terrestrial amphibian and more aquatic host species. We performed a historical survey to quantify Bd prevalence in 1127 Batrachoseps gregarius museum specimens collected from 1920 to 2000, and recent data from 16 contemporary (live-caught) B. gregarius populations from the southwestern slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, USA. We compared these results to Bd detection rates in 1395 historical and 1033 contemporary specimens from 10 species of anurans and 427 historical Taricha salamander specimens collected throughout the Sierra Nevada mountains. Our results indicate that Bd dynamics in the entirely terrestrial species, B. gregarius, differ from aquatic species in the same region in terms of both seasonal patterns of Bd abundance and in the possible timing of Bd epizootics. Keywords: Chytridiomycosis, Chytrid, Bd, Direct-developing, Plethodontids, Salamanders
INTRODUCTION Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), a causal agent of the widespread and deadly amphibian disease chytridiomycosis, is a pathogen responsible for devastating loss of biodiversity (Skerratt et al. 2007; Fisher et al. 2009) and a likely driver of mass extinction (Wake and Vredenburg 2008). The pathogen Bd consists of multiple genetic lineages that vary in pathogenicity. The hypervirulent global panzootic
Electronic supplementary material: The online version of this article (https://doi. org/10.1007/s10393-020-01501-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Published online: November 25, 2020 Correspondence to: Carla M. Sette, e-mail: [email protected]
lineage of Bd (BdGPL) is found on every continent with amphibians (Rosenblum et al. 2013; Byrne et al. 2017) and is a major contributor to the decline or extinction of hundreds of amphibian species (Stuart et al. 2004; Skerratt et al. 2007). With hypothesized origins in Asia, BdGPL (hereafter referred to as Bd) is a novel pathogen across much of its current distribution (O’Hanlon et al. 2018). This pathogen was likely spread globally during the last 50 to 120 years through amphibian trade (Fisher and Garner 2007; Rosenblum et al. 2013; O’Hanlon et al. 2018; Byrne et al. 2019). Because Bd was identified as the cause of chytridiomycosis in 1998 (Berger et al. 1998; Longcore et al. 1999), researchers have reconstructed Bd’s
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