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Source: http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-fungus-20110507,0,274698.story
Killer fungus linked to vanishing amphibians
Studying decades-old museum samples of frogs, toads and salamanders, biologists trace the path of a deadly skin disease across Mexico and Central America.
By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
May 7, 2011
Around the world, frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are disappearing ? and much about their demise has been a mystery. Now, in an episode of amphibian CSI, biologists have used decades-old museum samples of frogs, toads and salamanders to track the relentless path of a killer fungus across Mexico and Central America over the last 40 years.
The findings, published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, strongly link the amphibians' disappearance to the fungus and suggest that the disease was an alien invader rather than a native disease let loose by climate change.
By some estimates, about 40% of amphibian species are in decline. The main suspect is a skin fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, known as Bd. The disease causes salamanders to lose their tails and frogs to lose weight, killing the animals within about three weeks.
Though scientists have known for decades that amphibians were mysteriously dying, by the time the they realized the scope of the problem in the 1990s, it was too late for many species. Costa Rica's golden toad, for example, went extinct within three years in the late 1980s.
The fungus, discovered a decade later, was eventually identified as a suspect. However, researchers needed more information from the past...
Killer fungus linked to vanishing amphibians
Studying decades-old museum samples of frogs, toads and salamanders, biologists trace the path of a deadly skin disease across Mexico and Central America.
By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
May 7, 2011
Around the world, frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are disappearing ? and much about their demise has been a mystery. Now, in an episode of amphibian CSI, biologists have used decades-old museum samples of frogs, toads and salamanders to track the relentless path of a killer fungus across Mexico and Central America over the last 40 years.
The findings, published online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, strongly link the amphibians' disappearance to the fungus and suggest that the disease was an alien invader rather than a native disease let loose by climate change.
By some estimates, about 40% of amphibian species are in decline. The main suspect is a skin fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, known as Bd. The disease causes salamanders to lose their tails and frogs to lose weight, killing the animals within about three weeks.
Though scientists have known for decades that amphibians were mysteriously dying, by the time the they realized the scope of the problem in the 1990s, it was too late for many species. Costa Rica's golden toad, for example, went extinct within three years in the late 1980s.
The fungus, discovered a decade later, was eventually identified as a suspect. However, researchers needed more information from the past...