New insights in the evolution of disease virulence from frog killing fungus

A pandemic that is threatening amphibian populations around the world could be intensifying in virulence as it spreads according to new research. The chytrid fungus is responsible for the major decline in frog populations most notably in Australia and Central America. Now a new study by academics from Plymouth University and James Cook University, Queensland, has found that evolution and climate change could be contributing to the intensification of the disease. Their research paper has been published in the Royal Society of Biological Sciences journal ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society B’ this month. The researchers took advantage of good records kept on the spread of the fungus and the decline of frogs in Central America to investigate the relationship between the two. They found that the lag time between the arrival of the pathogen and the decline of the frog population diminished over time. Robert Puschendorf, lecturer in animal physiology and health in Plymouth University’s School of Biomedical and Biological Sciences, explained: “We have found an interesting pattern during the spread of one frog killing disease in Central America: an increased virulence as it spreads over the landscape.