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.