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Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci
2016 Dec 05;3711709:. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0207.
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Mitigating amphibian chytridiomycoses in nature.
Garner TW, Schmidt BR, Martel A, Pasmans F, Muths E, Cunningham AA, Weldon C, Fisher MC, Bosch J.
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Amphibians across the planet face the threat of population decline and extirpation caused by the disease chytridiomycosis. Despite consensus that the fungal pathogens responsible for the disease are conservation issues, strategies to mitigate their impacts in the natural world are, at best, nascent. Reducing risk associated with the movement of amphibians, non-amphibian vectors and other sources of infection remains the first line of defence and a primary objective when mitigating the threat of disease in wildlife. Amphibian-associated chytridiomycete fungi and chytridiomycosis are already widespread, though, and we therefore focus on discussing options for mitigating the threats once disease emergence has occurred in wild amphibian populations. All strategies have shortcomings that need to be overcome before implementation, including stronger efforts towards understanding and addressing ethical and legal considerations. Even if these issues can be dealt with, all currently available approaches, or those under discussion, are unlikely to yield the desired conservation outcome of disease mitigation. The decision process for establishing mitigation strategies requires integrated thinking that assesses disease mitigation options critically and embeds them within more comprehensive strategies for the conservation of amphibian populations, communities and ecosystems.This article is part of the themed issue 'Tackling emerging fungal threats to animal health, food security and ecosystem resilience'.
Figure 1. Examples of lethal chytridiomycosis from Latin America (a) and Europe (b). (a) A Craugastor underwoodi dead and in situ killed by lethal chytridiomycosis in Monte Verde, Costa Rica. The isolate derived from this animal in 2008 has served as the source of DNA for real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR)–positive controls for two of the authors to this day. (b) An Alytes muletensis, again dead and in situ, found on Mallorca, Spain.
Figure 2. The relative impact of culling and antifungal treatment in a simple, single-species population paramaterised using data on the Mallorcan midwife toad. Mitigation is undertaken at point m. See [23] for explanation of model structure and parameter estimation. (a) Culling of tadpoles, undertaken at point m, results in pathogen elimination. The yellow line is adult population size and the red line is free-swimming zoospore density. (b–c) Comparison between culling and tadpole antifungal treatment and release, assuming maintenance of infection in the adult population and keeping model parameters identical across models. Here, green lines are adult population size and blue lines are free-swimming zoospore density. In (b), mitigation is unsuccessful due to increased host density after treated tadpoles are returned to the pond. In (c), pathogen elimination is attributable to more persistent reduction in host density.
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