I hope you’ll read and disseminate Jim Gorman’s story on the new Science paper pointing to a potential ecological catastrophe in North America should a potent chytrid fungus that attacks salamanders arrive on these shores. The fungus originated in Asia and its arrival in Europe has already caused substantial salamander and newt losses there. A related fungus has already devastated a host of frog species around the tropics, as I’ve explored in many posts.
In laboratory tests, the researchers found a 100-percent mortality rate in Eastern newts (one of my favorite forest and pond creatures) exposed to the fungus.
As Gorman noted, legislation has been introduced in Congress that could limit chances of the fungus coming to the United States through the absurdly under-regulated international pet trade:
I’ve queried my representative in New York’s 18th District, Sean Patrick Maloney, and his Republican challenger, Nan Hayworth to see where they stand. I’ll update this post as information arrives.
There’s an excellent news feature in Science by
Stokstad on the science and the policy context. The piece notes that tightening rules for the trade in amphibians is a vital step:
The key…is to clamp down on the small but often lucrative global trade in amphibians. An estimated 2.3 million Chinese fire belly newts (Cynops orientalis) were imported into the United States between 2001 and 2009, according to a recent study. In Europe, officials have some legal tools for regulating the trade, but rarely use them. A new E.U. animal health law, expected next year, could help, says geneticist Matthew Fisher of Imperial College London, who studies wildlife diseases. “It will be more aggressive,” he predicts.
In the United States, no agency directly regulates imports of salamanders or other amphibians. “It’s a clear example of why we need to modernize our laws,” says Peter Jenkins, a consultant with the Center for Invasive Species Prevention in Washington, D.C. [Link.] Congress is considering bills to give the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) more authority and tools, but antiregulation lawmakers have helped stall the proposals.
The pet trade is open to improved regulation, says Marshall Meyers of the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council in Washington, D.C. [Link] He points out that the largest pet companies already treat imported amphibians with antimicrobial compounds to prevent the spread of Bd and other pathogens. The companies are also working with FWS officials to come up with ways to identify species, not yet in commerce, that might become invasive; this risk assessment could be a stopgap approach to screening out potential wildlife diseases and would “say to the pet trade: ‘Beware—don’t deal with these,’” Meyers says.
Here’s the abstract of the new paper:
Emerging infectious diseases are reducing biodiversity on a global scale. Recently, the emergence of the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans resulted in rapid declines in populations of European fire salamanders. Here, we screened more than 5,000 amphibians from across four continents and combined experimental assessment of pathogenicity with phylogenetic methods to estimate the threat that this infection poses to amphibian diversity. Results show that B. salamandrivorans is restricted to, but highly pathogenic for, salamanders and newts (Urodela). The pathogen likely originated and remained in coexistence with a clade of salamander hosts for millions of years in Asia. As a result of globalization and lack of biosecurity, it has recently been introduced into naïve European amphibian populations, where it is currently causing biodiversity loss.
And here’s a video explainer from An Martel of Ghent University, the paper’s lead author:
