Entire amphibian communities are being wiped out by emerging viruses

Scientists from QMUL, UCL, Zoological Society of London, and the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC) in Madrid, tracing the real-time impact of viruses in the wild have found that entire amphibian communities are being killed off by closely related viruses introduced to mountainous areas of northern Spain. The viruses are causing severe disease and mass deaths in many amphibian species sampled, including frogs and salamanders. The common midwife toad, common toad and alpine newt were the worst affected, showing levels of population collapse which could ultimately prove catastrophic to amphibian communities and their ecosystems. The results have wider significance as emerging diseases threaten all animal groups, including humans, where viruses have crossed the species barrier from other animals, for instance Ebola, which jumped from bats and other wild animals to humans. The paper, published today in Current Biology, reports a remarkable breadth of animals being infected including a snake which had been feeding on infected amphibians. The viruses are part of the Ranavirus group which has previously been shown to only cause declines in the UK's common frog - so this is the first time a member of the group (Common midwife toad virus or CMTV) has been found to affect entire host communities simultaneously. From annual surveys across 15 locations in Picos de Europa National Park (PNPE) between 2005 and 2012, the team found animals from six amphibian species, of all ages, dead or dying from infection with CMTV.