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The Link Between Rapid Enigmatic Amphibian Decline and the Globally Emerging Chytrid Fungus

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Abstract

Amphibians are globally declining and approximately one-third of all species are threatened with extinction. Some of the most severe declines have occurred suddenly and for unknown reasons in apparently pristine habitats. It has been hypothesized that these “rapid enigmatic declines” are the result of a panzootic of the disease chytridiomycosis caused by globally emerging amphibian chytrid fungus. In a Species Distribution Model, we identified the potential distribution of this pathogen. Areas and species from which rapid enigmatic decline are known significantly overlap with those of highest environmental suitability to the chytrid fungus. We confirm the plausibility of a link between rapid enigmatic decline in worldwide amphibian species and epizootic chytridiomycosis.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ariadne Angulo and Mike Hoffmann of Conservation International for being helpful in making available requested IUCN data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biogeography, Trier University, Am Wissenschaftspark 25-27, 54296, Trier, Germany

    Stefan Lötters, Michael Veith & Dennis Rödder

  2. Department of Biology, Section for Microbiology and Evolution, Copenhagen University, Universitetsparken 15, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Jos Kielgast

  3. Department of Biology, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus Ascot, London, SL5 7PY, UK

    Jon Bielby

  4. Department of Geography, Bonn University, Meckenheimer Allee 166, 53115, Bonn, Germany

    Sebastian Schmidtlein

  5. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, C/José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    Jaime Bosch

  6. Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, St. Mary’s Hospital, Norfolk Place, London, W2 1PG, UK

    Susan F. Walker & Matthew C. Fisher

Authors
  1. Stefan Lötters
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  2. Jos Kielgast
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  7. Susan F. Walker
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  9. Dennis Rödder
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefan Lötters.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 1.

Table 1 List of all amphibian species undergoing rapid enigmatic decline as listed in the GAA with their IUCN Red List status and the geographic range size encompassed by them (www.iucnredlist.org), followed for each species by the portion of its geographic range at the same time suitable to the amphibian chytrid fungus
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Appendix 2

Exclusion of one species due to insufficient taxonomic status. Under the GAA, one Atelopus population from the Amazon versant of the Andes in Ecuador was allocated to A. spumarius due to morphological resemblance. However, this Andean population represents an undescribed species and is not conspecific with any of the populations from the Amazon basin and the adjacent Guyana Shield which tentatively have been referred to as A. spumarius (Lötters et al., 2002; Rueda-Almonacid et al., 2005). Although the undescribed species has experienced rapid enigmatic decline, those from the Amazon lowlands or adjacent Guyana region have not (Lötters et al., 2005; Rueda-Almonacid et al., 2005; Luger et al., 2008). Because there is no other amphibian species from this remarkably large area, encompassed by A. spumarius (excluding the undescribed species), which has suffered from rapid decline at all, inclusion of the GAA shapefile for A. spumarius would have misled our study.

Appendix 3

See Figure 3.

Figure 3
figure 3

Worldwide potential distribution of the amphibian chytrid fungus (based on a MaxEnt SDM and six “bioclimate” variables), with higher values indicating higher suitability. The 175 records for this pathogen used for SDM calculation, all located outside areas of rapid enigmatic amphibian decline, are indicated by dots.

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Lötters, S., Kielgast, J., Bielby, J. et al. The Link Between Rapid Enigmatic Amphibian Decline and the Globally Emerging Chytrid Fungus. EcoHealth 6, 358–372 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10393-010-0281-6

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