Amphibians are one of the groups of wildlife most seriously threatened by emerging infectious disease. In particular, chytridiomycosis, caused by the aquatic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, is responsible for amphibian species declines on a worldwide scale. Population-level outcomes following the introduction of the pathogen are context dependent and mediated by a large suite of abiotic and biotic variables. In particular, studies have shown that temperature has a key role in determining infection dynamics owing to the ectothermic nature of the amphibian host and temperature-dependency of pathogen growth rates. To assess the temperature-dependent seasonality of infectious burdens in a susceptible host species, we monitored lowland populations of larval midwife toads, Alytes obstetricians, in Central Spain throughout the year. We found that infections were highly seasonal, and inversely correlated against water temperature, with the highest burdens of infection seen during the colder months. Short-term impacts of water-temperature were found, with the minimum temperatures occurring before sampling being more highly predictive of infectious burdens than were longer-term spans of temperature. Our results will be useful for selecting the optimal time for disease surveys and, more broadly, for determining the key periods to undertake disease mitigation.
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain;Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain;Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain;Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, St. Mary’s Hospital, London, United Kingdom;Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, Madrid, Spain;Centro de Investigación, Seguimiento y Evaluación, Parque Nacional de la Sierra de Guadarrama, Rascafría, Spain
Recommended Citation:
Saioa Fernández-Beaskoetxea,Luis M. Carrascal,Andrés Fernández-Loras,et al. Short Term Minimum Water Temperatures Determine Levels of Infection by the Amphibian Chytrid Fungus in Alytes obstetricans Tadpoles[J]. PLOS ONE,2015-01-01,10(3)