30 Amphibian Species Wiped Out in Panama Forest

[Frog News]

National Geographic News (Washington DC, USA) July 20th, 2010 02:24 PM: 30 Amphibian Species Wiped Out in Panama Forest

The "catastrophic" epidemic in Panama claimed five species that were lost before they were even identified by science, a new study says.

Full Article

[Jace]

Does anyone know where chytrid fungus originated from? It can't possibly have just sprung up, but why is it all of a sudden so deadly to frogs all over the world? Is it prevalent in North America?

[KennyDB]

Chytridiomycose is caused by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis wich was originaly from Africa and they assume Xenopus laevis spread it around the world in the '40s...

[John]

Hurray for National Geographic and the utter cheek they have of putting adverts in their news feeds. I wouldn't mind but their article is just a summary of a new journal article on the state of amphibians in Panama that came out a few days ago, and Nat Geo weren't even the first to publish such a summary - other sites beat them to it and we have already got a feed on here from such a site.

Anyhow, Chytrid was first described to science at the end of the 90s. It's mainly a problem in the New World because we believe most Old World amphibians have had some exposure to it in some form or other for thousands of years or more. This is not the case in the New World, and amphibian species there are often particularly vulnerable to it.

[Kurt]

Is it prevalent in North America?

It is in California, where it is playing havoc with the mountain yellow-legged frog, Rana muscosa. The other two hot spots are Central America and Australia.

[KennyDB]

Researchers found it in populations in the Netherlands and Belgium to :-(

[Jace]

Wow. I didn't realize it was in as many places as it is. It's only been in the last year or so that I have really heard about it, but I don't know the history behind it. I remember an article I read near the beginning that made it sound like only tadpoles were truly affected, but I know now that is not true. This may be a really dumb question, but what do you mean by "Old World" amphibians? Are newts and salamanders equally affected (I don't hear about them much in such articles...)?

[Kurt]

The Old World would be Europe, Africa, and Asia. The term is based on European perceptions of the world around starting with Columbus' "discovery" of the New World (the Americas). I believe Australasia is also considered the Old World as well.

Chytridiomycosis effects salamanders as well, though it is more widely known amongst frogs, which out-number all other amphibian orders and are not as secretive as the other two amphibian orders, Caudata amd Gymnophonia.