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Species of the Week:
Litoria nannotis
Amphibian News
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Prevalence of the highly virulent amphibian chytrid fungus varies among species, elevations and seasons in places where the disease has become endemic. While we knew that the fungus in culture grows best between 17 and 25 Celsius, the effect of a frog’s thermal behavior on chytrid infection was unclear. A new study (Rowley and Alford 2013) shows that in three species of stream-breeding rainforest frogs (Litoria lesueuri, L. serrata, L. nannotis), the frog’s probability of chytrid infection declines as they spend more time above the fungus upper optimum temperature of 25 C. The frog’s temperatures were tracked daily at four sites and over several seasons. These findings highlight the potential role of variation in thermal preferences among individuals in determining individual susceptibility and population-level differences in prevalence of infection.
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