A team of 33 researchers from 26 North American, European, Australian and Asian institutions has completed the first major survey in Asia of a deadly fungus which threatens large proportions of the worlds amphibians and has already wiped out more than 200 species. From 2001 to 2009, the team surveyed more than 3,000 amphibians — mostly frogs — from 15 Asian countries, searching for any trace of the disease infecting the skin of the amphibians. The survey could help scientists to answer the question why the Chytrid fungus has been unusually devastating in many parts of the globe — and why rapid population declines and extinctions are apparently absent in Asian amphibians. The globally emerging disease chytridiomycosis, caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or Bd, is next to habitat destruction one of the major driving forces in amphibian extinctions in Central, South and North America, Australia and Europe. The new Asian survey of the fungus, which was published Aug. 16 in the journal PLoS One by Andrea Swei, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, NY, USA, and colleagues, shows that Bd is prevalent at very low levels in the region. Leer más.
So the local weatherman says there’s a big storm coming. We’ve heard that one before. But really, it’s coming – even the Weather Channel says so. Leer más.
When biologist Ruben Ramirez wants to introduce people to his favorite amphibian, he takes them to a little oasis in the southwestern foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains where an isolated colony of endangered arroyo toads clings to existence by their stout little toes. Leer más.
Se non fose pola treboada do domingo pasado non semella que estemos en agosto, levamos unha semana de dias pechados, chuvia, e temperaturas baixas. Hoxe puiden escapar un par de horas as Ribeiras do Louro, e semellaba mais un dia de outono, rozando os 20º, pouca actividade dos animais. Leer más.
