Fungus Pushes Frogs Towards Extinction

[Emily]

http://wamu.org/news/11/08/02/fungus_pushes_frogs_towards_extinction.php

Chytrid: Fungus Pushes Frogs Towards Extinction
Sabri Ben-Achour

August 02, 2011 - It's been called a crisis in amphibian biology: more than a third of amphibian species are at risk of extinction. Habitat loss and climate change are both causes, but so is an invasive disease that's been called the smallpox of the amphibian world....

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Fungus Pushes Frogs Towards Extinction

Chorus Frog Blamed for Spreading Devastating Disease

Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 12 March 2012 Time: 04:40 PM ET

A common West Coast frog, the Pacific chorus frog, may be spreading the deadly fungal infection that is devastating other amphibians, a new study suggests.

Not only did the tiny chorus frogs survive an epidemic of the disease, called chytridiomycosis, that devastated their neighbors—once-abundant mountain yellow-legged frogs —in Sixty Lake Basin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, tests in the lab found the chorus frogs were able to survive while carrying high loads of the fungus responsible for the disease.

More...
http://www.livescience.com/19001-chorus-frog-chytrid-fungus-epidemic.html