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Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis

Amphibians are the most highly threatened vertebrates, and emerging pathogens are a serious threat to their conservation. Amphibian chytrid fungi and the viruses of the Ranavirus genus are causing disease outbreaks worldwide, including in protected areas such as National Parks. However, we lack info...

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Autores principales: Bosch, Jaime, Mora-Cabello de Alba, Amparo, Marquínez, Susana, Price, Stephen J., Thumsová, Barbora, Bielby, Jon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255480/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34235196
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.645491
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author Bosch, Jaime
Mora-Cabello de Alba, Amparo
Marquínez, Susana
Price, Stephen J.
Thumsová, Barbora
Bielby, Jon
author_facet Bosch, Jaime
Mora-Cabello de Alba, Amparo
Marquínez, Susana
Price, Stephen J.
Thumsová, Barbora
Bielby, Jon
author_sort Bosch, Jaime
collection PubMed
description Amphibians are the most highly threatened vertebrates, and emerging pathogens are a serious threat to their conservation. Amphibian chytrid fungi and the viruses of the Ranavirus genus are causing disease outbreaks worldwide, including in protected areas such as National Parks. However, we lack information about their effect over amphibian populations in the long-term, and sometimes these mortality episodes are considered as transient events without serious consequences over longer time-spans. Here, we relate the occurrence of both pathogens with the population trends of 24 amphibian populations at 15 sites across a national Park in northern Spain over a 14-year period. Just one out 24 populations presents a positive population trend being free of both pathogens, while seven populations exposed to one or two pathogens experienced strong declines during the study period. The rest of the study populations (16) remain stable, and these tend to be of species that are not susceptible to the pathogen present or are free of pathogens. Our study is consistent with infectious diseases playing an important role in dictating amphibian population trends and emphasizes the need to adopt measures to control these pathogens in nature. We highlight that sites housing species carrying Ranavirus seems to have experienced more severe population-level effects compared to those with the amphibian chytrid fungus, and that ranaviruses could be just as, or more important, other more high-profile amphibian emerging pathogens.
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spelling pubmed-82554802021-07-06 Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis Bosch, Jaime Mora-Cabello de Alba, Amparo Marquínez, Susana Price, Stephen J. Thumsová, Barbora Bielby, Jon Front Vet Sci Veterinary Science Amphibians are the most highly threatened vertebrates, and emerging pathogens are a serious threat to their conservation. Amphibian chytrid fungi and the viruses of the Ranavirus genus are causing disease outbreaks worldwide, including in protected areas such as National Parks. However, we lack information about their effect over amphibian populations in the long-term, and sometimes these mortality episodes are considered as transient events without serious consequences over longer time-spans. Here, we relate the occurrence of both pathogens with the population trends of 24 amphibian populations at 15 sites across a national Park in northern Spain over a 14-year period. Just one out 24 populations presents a positive population trend being free of both pathogens, while seven populations exposed to one or two pathogens experienced strong declines during the study period. The rest of the study populations (16) remain stable, and these tend to be of species that are not susceptible to the pathogen present or are free of pathogens. Our study is consistent with infectious diseases playing an important role in dictating amphibian population trends and emphasizes the need to adopt measures to control these pathogens in nature. We highlight that sites housing species carrying Ranavirus seems to have experienced more severe population-level effects compared to those with the amphibian chytrid fungus, and that ranaviruses could be just as, or more important, other more high-profile amphibian emerging pathogens. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8255480/ /pubmed/34235196 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.645491 Text en Copyright © 2021 Bosch, Mora-Cabello de Alba, Marquínez, Price, Thumsová and Bielby. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Veterinary Science
Bosch, Jaime
Mora-Cabello de Alba, Amparo
Marquínez, Susana
Price, Stephen J.
Thumsová, Barbora
Bielby, Jon
Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
title Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
title_full Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
title_fullStr Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
title_full_unstemmed Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
title_short Long-Term Monitoring of Amphibian Populations of a National Park in Northern Spain Reveals Negative Persisting Effects of Ranavirus, but Not Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
title_sort long-term monitoring of amphibian populations of a national park in northern spain reveals negative persisting effects of ranavirus, but not batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
topic Veterinary Science
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8255480/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34235196
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.645491
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