Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis

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Context

• The fungus named Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is expanding across Africa and killing out or driving to the verge of extinction hundreds of amphibian species.

About

• Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis also known as Bd or the amphibian chytrid fungus, is a fungus that causes the disease chytridiomycosis- an infectious disease in amphibians.

Transmission

• The fungus spreads through spores discharged into water from amphibian skin.

Impact

• The fungus named Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis affects the keratin in the skin of amphibians, resulting in chytridiomycosis.
• Since its discovery in 1998 by Lee Berger, the disease devastated amphibian populations around the world, in a global decline towards multiple extinctions, part of the Holocene extinction.
• The fungal pathogens that cause the disease chytridiomycosis ravage the skin of frogs, toads, and other amphibians, throwing off their balance of water and salt and eventually causing heart failure.

Recent Discovery

• A recently described second species, salamandrivorans, also cause chytridiomycosis and death in salamanders.

Prevalence

• It is most prevalent in South and Central America, Australia, and North America.

Has it affected humans?

• The Black Death, an outbreak of bubonic plague in the middle of the fourteenth century that killed one-third of Europe’s population in five years, was the closest human disease resembling chytridiomycosis in terms of magnitude.

The role of climate change

• Previous studies have found that climate change may actually be beneficial for the fungus.
• This is because increased cloud cover brought on by climate change may lead to cooler daytime temperatures and warmer nighttime temperatures, which would be more conducive to the growth of the microscopic fungus.
• For instance, any change in temperature could have an effect on the fungus because it grows best in a range of 63 to 77 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Climate change could bring about more hot, arid, and dry conditions.
• Because the fungus cannot thrive over 86 degrees Fahrenheit and needs moist settings to spread its spores, these conditions could be harmful.

https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/explained-the-killer-fungus-wiping-out-the-frog-species-12313642.html