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Title: The fighting of a fungunal scourge in amphibians.
IMAGE CREDIT: Flicker / Brian Gratwicke
The fungunal scourage affect a lot of the amphibian population. The disease is the result of a bacteria found to live on the skin of the frogs. The disease is also known to be responsible for the declining of amphibian species which includes the Panamanian gold frog.
The frog disease source is the single celled fungus called the chytridiomycosis. No one has the relevant information of where exactly chytrid first came from but it is found that if it infect the amphibian skin the fog can get sick and die. The disease of the skin chytridiomycosis is caused by the waterborne fungus Batrachytrium dendrobatides (Bd). The disease chytridiomycosis simply kills by disrupting ion and fluid stopping the heart of the frog.
Keywords: affect, amphibian, chytridiomycosis, disease, fungunal and scourage
The amphibians are basically includes frogs, salamanders, newts and toads.
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They are often referred to as small vertebrates that need water or an environment which is moist in order to survive using their skin to breathe and even absorb water. They have skin glands that are quite special which has the ability to produce useful proteins. A recent study has come to show that the amphibian population has been shrinking for about more than four in every ten of the amphibian species population whereby also almost a third of the amphibians are threatened with extinction which could be a big problem for the environment since the amphibians form an important part of the food chain by feeding on pesky insect like the flies and mosquitoes.
It is known that the first group of amphibians developed during the Devonian period which was around 370 million years ago from the lobe finned fish. The Ichthyostega was one of the first primitive amphibians which had nostrils and lungs which were more efficient. The amphibians evolved a few adaptations that allowed them to stay out of the water for longer periods. The lungs improved and their skeleton became stronger and heavy which was advantageous to be able to better support weight of their bodies on land with the skin becoming more capable for retaining body fluids.
The helpful mutations guard some frogs in terms of immune systems which is the body's original fighting system against injuries and some sickness. According to recent study by Savage A.E(2016) who has been studying how the immune systems differ in frogs that is killed by chytrid and the ones that are able to survive. All of the work began when Savage was still studying her PhD at the Cornell
University in New York. The first clues come from a group a lowland leopard frogs which she had studied in Arizona. The genes change all the time which can lead to differences in the immune systems genes. It is found that the frogs with the genes which enables them to survive the disease will be able to pass the genes to their offspring's. It is also explained by Savage et.al that the offspring will also be able to survive the fungus and eventually those frogs having those genes will survive more. This process of changes in genetic within a population is known as natural selection which is described as the driving factor in the species evolution. The major changes of evolution within a species can take about a thousand or even a million years but if there is a very strong selective pressure such as that of the chytrid disease the species is disadvantaged to survive the million years and the frog species that are not able to adapt are wiped out immediately.
The study was performed in a canton in the Central Switzerland using five different sites with eight ponds that contained A. Obstertricans and Bd being selected. The point had similar elevation range from 558-798 cm, surfaces area from 6-30m2 and depth from 0.5-2.5m. The water of each pond measured about like 10 time per day.
The study took place from May 2012 to April 2013 which involved two different groups of tadpoles. In 2012 majority the tadpoles 98% = 612 /623 were captured in the months of May, June and July. The first capture date was May 11 2012 last capture date was July 17 2012 this had left the ponds as metamorphism by August 2012. For the 2013 group most of the tadpoles 98, 6%= 1486/1507 were captured from August 2012- April 2013, first capture date was from 6 August 2012, last capture date from 8 April 2013. Tadpoles in 2013 group were treated with fungicide on 3 separate occasions (May, June and July) whereas thee tadpole in 2013 cohort were treated only once during September. A different visible implant elastomer tag color was used for the fungal treatment of May, June and July and September 2013. The tadpole are tagged every time that they were captured and treated in antifungals. Frogs were washed individually with 17-ml of water which is sterile to get rid of the transitory microbes. Water was collected using 17 ml sterile tubes, stored in ice and filtered through 0.5 cm sterivex filters to catch bacteria and fungi and frozen in sterility cryovials.
The tadpoles were treated of the common Alyles obstericans with some antifungal agents using the capture treat release approach in the field. During spring the antifungal treatment was able to reduce the conduction of Bd in the group of the tadpoles and also decreases the transmission of the Bd and during winter the Bd condition reached about 100% in both the controlled and treated ponds. Therefore it can be said that the rare or random application of antifungal agents in the present study had not been sufficient for the long term and the large scale control of the Bd amphibian system.
A total of about 2096 A. Obstertricans tadpole were used tadpole being classified as belonging to either winter n=612 or spring group n=1486. The tadpoles were captured from May - July 2012 and tadpoles of 2012 from August 2012 to April 2013. They were analyzed separately since they occurred in pond of different time of the year. The proportion of Bd in the tadpoles was found to be the lowest in August and in September but highest in the winter most post referring to figure 1. In 2012 the Bd prevalence remained stable/ decreased from May to July whereby in 2013 Bd proportion increased from August to the winter and declined during spring.
Figure 1: The graph of prevalence of Bd and their months.
Hudson M.A el.al displayed that the antifungal treatment has the ability to diminish the Bd infection of the frogs and can increase the survival of the frogs. The antifungal treatment reduced the prevalence of Bd in 2012 over May to July. Another thing which is interbreeding was that the fungicide treatment of the 2012 group change the indefinitely movement of the Bd prevalence in 2013 group. For the 2013 group the control ponds, Bd prevalence was increased and remained the same overtime which was from August 2012 to April 2013.
In conclusion for the 2012 group of tadpoles in the treated ponds the Bd prevalence was not high in August and September. The study shows that the antifungal treatment prevented Bd transmission from being infective to being ineffective to the A. Obstericans tadpoles. Also suggest that the fungi associated with a host should be a greater focus of the attempt of future to develop treatment probiotic therapies of the chytridiomycosis. The fungi might also provide key probiotics for the required disease management in amphibians.
Bosch J. et.al successful elimination of a lethal wildlife infectious disease in nature. Biol.Lett.2005
Hanlon S.M, Kerby J.L, Paris M.J. Fungicide clears Infection from Pathogenic Fungus in Larval Southern Leopard frogs. 2012
Hudson M.A et.al, site intraconazole treatment improves survival rated during an amphibian chytridiomycosis epidemic.2016
Savage A.E. and Zamudio. K.R Proceedings of the Royl Society .2016
Current Trends in Speciation: A Comprehensive Overview. (2019, Dec 04). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/malevu-s-example-essay
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