[Golden State Mantellas]

Interesting article in ScienceDaily about a possible aid in the fight against B. dendrobatidis aka. chytrid, shared courtesy of TWI.

Possible biological control discovered for pathogen devastating amphibians

 

[Woodsman]

Thanks for the article, Justin. It does sort of beg the question, are the no native water-born Daphnia in the areas that chytrid is found? There would have to be a lot of additional work to determine if the Daphnia could reduce the fungus to a point where it would not be infectious to the frogs. It doesn't seem likely.

Richard.

 

[pnwpdf]

Very cool article. Finding a method of control that will work is a monumental obstacle. However, a second giant hurdle will be to answer the question of how to implement it.

Richard, to me the article suggested that not all daphnia will eat B. dendrobatidis, and that the breakthrough that the researcher came upon was finding that particular daphnia species (D. magna) that does. Daphnia species are found world-wide, but D. magna is endemic to only the northwest US, Eurasia and a few places in Africa... which would answer your question, I think.

 

[widmad27]

Indeed an interesting read, but certainly a logistical nigthmare to implement. Thanks for sharing.