Drittmittelprojekt: NABU
DBU, 22.564 EUR
Kliniken/Institute:
Institut für Biochemie
Research Center for Emerging Infections and Zoonoses
Institut für Zoologie
Projektdetails:
Infectious diseases are a worldwide problem, sometimes causing declines and extinctions in wild populations and species. An alarming situation is the infestation of amphibians by a chytrid fungus: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has infected over 520 species worldwide. This fungus grows in the skin surface of amphibians and keratinizes cells; this difficults the transport of ions, and therefore osmoregulation, which in many cases leads to death by cardiac arrest and massive mortalities. Habitat fragmentation, within other factors including diseases, has lead amphibians to be the most threatened vertebrate group. In Europe, the yellow bellied toad (Bombina variegata) is classified as endangered, and is one of the few anurans with a high Bd infection prevalence. In Germany, yellow bellied toads have been recorded to have a Bd infection rate around 14%, however no Bd massive mortalities due to chytridiomycosis have been reported. In spite of that, Bd infection could entail a fitness reduction. Currently the yellow bellied toad is listed at the German red list as endangered and within some regions of Germany as threatened with extinction. For this reason the NABU started a native habitat management and connection project, which includes reintroductions. As Bd is present in Germany, this project aims to understand better the threat Bd is posing to yellow bellied toad populations. At the northernmost distribution of the yellow bellied toad, NABU is monitoring 16 populations and in four of them toads have been reintroduced. These populations were sampled three times in spring and summer 2016 (May, July and September) to determine the difference in infection rate in relation to temperature, population size and genetic diversity. The quantification of Bd infection rate is determined by real-time qPCR. The technique was established at RIZ-TiHo by Dr. Bourke together with de Buhr, PhD. Up to now, 593 DNA samples have been extracted, the qPCR technique set up and Bd infection quantified.
Resultate:
Oswald P, Rodríguez A, Bourke J, Wagner N, de Buhr N, Buschmann H, Köckritz-Blickwede M, Pröhl H (2020) Locality, time and heterozygosity affect chytrid infection in yellow-bellied toads. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 142: 225-237
Kooperationspartner:
M.Sc. Pia Oswald, Universität Bielefeld
Dr. Holger Buschmann, NABU
Dr. Norman Wagner, Universität Trier
