Giuseppe
Emeritus
Epidemic disease decimates amphibian abundance, species diversity, and evolutionary history in the highlands of central Panama (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, abstract, edited)
[Source: PNAS, original abstract, <cite cite="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/31/13777.short?rss=1">Epidemic disease decimates amphibian abundance, species diversity, and evolutionary history in the highlands of central Panama ? PNAS</cite>. Edited.]
Epidemic disease decimates amphibian abundance, species diversity, and evolutionary history in the highlands of central Panama
Andrew J. Crawford a,b,c,1, Karen R. Lips a,d, and Eldredge Bermingham a
Author Affiliations
a) Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Panam?, Republic of Panama;
b) Department of Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, A.A. 4976, Bogot?, Colombia;
c) C?rculo Herpetol?gico de Panam?, Apartado 0824-00122, Panam?, Republic of Panama; and
d) Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-4415
Edited* by David B. Wake, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, and approved June 22, 2010 (received for review December 7, 2009)
Abstract
Amphibian populations around the world are experiencing unprecedented declines attributed to a chytrid fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Despite the severity of the crisis, quantitative analyses of the effects of the epidemic on amphibian abundance and diversity have been unavailable as a result of the lack of equivalent data collected before and following disease outbreak. We present a community-level assessment combining long-term field surveys and DNA barcode data describing changes in abundance and evolutionary diversity within the amphibian community of El Cop?, Panama, following a disease epidemic and mass-mortality event. The epidemic reduced taxonomic, lineage, and phylogenetic diversity similarly. We discovered that 30 species were lost, including five undescribed species, representing 41% of total amphibian lineage diversity in El Cop?. These extirpations represented 33% of the evolutionary history of amphibians within the community, and variation in the degree of population loss and decline among species was random with respect to the community phylogeny. Our approach provides a fast, economical, and informative analysis of loss in a community whether measured by species or phylogenetic diversity.
* amphibian decline
* biodiversity
* chytridiomycosis
* DNA barcoding
* phylogenetic diversity
Footnotes
* 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: andrew@dna.ac.
* Author contributions: A.J.C., K.R.L., and E.B. designed research; A.J.C. and K.R.L. performed research; A.J.C. and K.R.L. analyzed data; and A.J.C., K.R.L., and E.B. wrote the paper.
* The authors declare no conflict of interest.
*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
* Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database [accession nos. FJ766564?FJ766838 (COI barcode) and FJ784316?FJ784608 (16S gene sequences)].
* This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.0914115107/-/DCSupplemental.
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[Source: PNAS, original abstract, <cite cite="http://www.pnas.org/content/107/31/13777.short?rss=1">Epidemic disease decimates amphibian abundance, species diversity, and evolutionary history in the highlands of central Panama ? PNAS</cite>. Edited.]
Epidemic disease decimates amphibian abundance, species diversity, and evolutionary history in the highlands of central Panama
Andrew J. Crawford a,b,c,1, Karen R. Lips a,d, and Eldredge Bermingham a
Author Affiliations
a) Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Apartado 0843-03092, Panam?, Republic of Panama;
b) Department of Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, A.A. 4976, Bogot?, Colombia;
c) C?rculo Herpetol?gico de Panam?, Apartado 0824-00122, Panam?, Republic of Panama; and
d) Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-4415
Edited* by David B. Wake, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, and approved June 22, 2010 (received for review December 7, 2009)
Abstract
Amphibian populations around the world are experiencing unprecedented declines attributed to a chytrid fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Despite the severity of the crisis, quantitative analyses of the effects of the epidemic on amphibian abundance and diversity have been unavailable as a result of the lack of equivalent data collected before and following disease outbreak. We present a community-level assessment combining long-term field surveys and DNA barcode data describing changes in abundance and evolutionary diversity within the amphibian community of El Cop?, Panama, following a disease epidemic and mass-mortality event. The epidemic reduced taxonomic, lineage, and phylogenetic diversity similarly. We discovered that 30 species were lost, including five undescribed species, representing 41% of total amphibian lineage diversity in El Cop?. These extirpations represented 33% of the evolutionary history of amphibians within the community, and variation in the degree of population loss and decline among species was random with respect to the community phylogeny. Our approach provides a fast, economical, and informative analysis of loss in a community whether measured by species or phylogenetic diversity.
* amphibian decline
* biodiversity
* chytridiomycosis
* DNA barcoding
* phylogenetic diversity
Footnotes
* 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: andrew@dna.ac.
* Author contributions: A.J.C., K.R.L., and E.B. designed research; A.J.C. and K.R.L. performed research; A.J.C. and K.R.L. analyzed data; and A.J.C., K.R.L., and E.B. wrote the paper.
* The authors declare no conflict of interest.
*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
* Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database [accession nos. FJ766564?FJ766838 (COI barcode) and FJ784316?FJ784608 (16S gene sequences)].
* This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.0914115107/-/DCSupplemental.
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