Walking trails in Esmareldas Ecuador, looking for amphibians gave me lots of time to stop and play with beautiful snakes.

I spent a summer volunteering for Bilsa Biological Station in Esmeralda’s Ecuador with Juatun Sacha. We help with collecting and planting seeds and taking care of saplings. This project involved the cultivation of hardwoods for carbon sequestration. I also worked with a graduate student from the University of British Columbia to characterize the distribution and abundance of the amphibian fauna found in primary, and secondary forests. Learning Spanish and investigating the vast diversity of insects, amphibians, and birds was all consuming.

Here we are hard at work. Carrying saplings to be replanted in a larger nersery.
This is one of the best places to be in the world, but can you hack the mud!

Tasmanian Facial Tumor. (Are you kidding?)

 Arguably the nastiest visible pathology of any emerging infectious disease. Tasmanian facial tumor is one of the only viral cancers that we know of. A cancer that can be spread by contact most likely while feeding has decimated the Tasmanian devil which is for the most part endemic to the island. At the current rate of transmission and pathogenicity researchers argue we may lose this one beautiful creature in 20 years. Is there a current management strategy for the awesome creature.

Any  interesting disease people would like to report on?

The Fallen

 

Curtsy of US Fish and Wildlife Service




















Disease Ecologists have Identified White Nose Syndrome (WNS) as a newly emerging Infectious disease. The Epi-center has been tracked to Albany N.Y.  WNS can be identified as a white markings on the nose and wings.

Many disease ecologists are drawing parallels between Bd and WNS.  If this is a reasonable comparison, which I believe it is, than what should the primary focus be for WNS. In other words  what have we learned form chitrid that will be useful to managing WNS.

Amphibians In The News

The Leaning Tower of Amphibia

http://www.impactlab.net/2008/11/14/doubts-in-global-warming-link-to-amphibian-declines/

 Amphibian populations are crashing; nearly one third of the world’s 6140 species is threatened with extinction (Stuart et. al. 2004). Although amphibian declines have been strongly linked to habitat destruction, degradation, fragmentation, and changes in global temperature (Blaustein 1995, Davidson 2006),Amphibian declines associated with disease have caused mass mortality in pristine habitat. This is of great alarm to conservation biologist.