Danger of moving animals and plants around
the world highlighted
Date: May 7, 2018
Source: San Francisco State University
Summary:
In the 1890s, settlers crossed the Rocky
Mountains seeking new opportunities -- and bearing frogs. A new study draws a
link between that introduction of American bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) to the western half of the United States with the
spread of a fungus deadly to amphibians. The work highlights the catastrophic
results of moving animals and plants to new regions.
The fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has rapidly spread around
the world since the 1970s, causing a skin disease called chytridiomycosis and
wiping out more than 200 species of amphibians globally. In the United States,
these declines have followed a curious pattern. "In the whole region east
of the Rockies, there hasn't been a single outbreak of Bd," said
study author Vance Vredenburg, a professor of biology at San Francisco State.
"But in the West there's hundreds, if not thousands."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!