University biology professor Karen Lips has amassed thousands of salamanders for years from nearby forests, the Appalachian Mountains and from a preserved Smithsonian collection.
While she’s found a link she’s been looking for between warmer climates and a shrinking salamander population, she has also helped discover a new fungus strain that is causing many of the creatures to die.
Scientists confirmed that the Bs fungus, scientifically known as batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, is present in many salamanders outside of the Netherlands, according to a study released Thursday by RAVON, a leading amphibian and reptilian research group in the Netherlands.
“We tested more than 1,400 salamanders from the museum, and ones that we captured in the wild,” said Carly Muletz, a university biology doctoral candidate.
University scientists swabbed the salamanders for the Asian fungal pathogen Bs and sent the swabs to RAVON.
Researchers found that the pathogen suffocates salamanders by forming a layer of gelatin-like fungus over the skin. Because lungless salamanders and other amphibians breathe and absorb water through their skin, they die because the fungus takes that ability away, Lips said.
“There are no vaccinations to minimize the chances of getting the fungus,” Lips said. “We can give them an antibacterial bath and release them, but they’re going to get it again.”
Although Bs has yet to be seen in the U.S., a relative fungal pathogen, Bd, has been found in several salamanders tested in this country, and it has killed salamanders and frogs. When the bacteria enters their systems, they have a mini heart attack because their bodies get so inflamed with fungus, Muletz said.
Bd has devastated amphibian populations around the world since it was first discovered in 1998. Bs, on the other hand, has depleted some populations almost to the point of extinction.
“The pet trade and food trade are places where this [Bs] fungus could enter into the U.S.,” Lips said. “We have to be careful that it doesn’t escape from shipment containers and other means of transporting these guys into the country.”
While Lips has tried to push lawmakers to strengthen pet-trade regulations to protect U.S. salamanders, Graziella Vittoria Direnzo, a biology doctoral candidate, focused her research efforts on amphibian population dynamics in Panama. Direnzo has found several environmental reservoirs for the fungus during her four trips to Panama.
“No one really knows about the aquatic fungus, so it could get trapped in the mud, on your boots or even your truck in the tropics,” Direnzo said. “It’s so easy to move fungus from place to place.”
The invasiveness and transferable properties of Bs fungus make it comparable to the human influenza virus, Muletz said.
“You really only need one or two infected individuals to go into the water to produce enough of these cells and send them out into the water and to all of the other salamanders,” Muletz said.
Keeping salamanders safe from this fungus is crucial for local populations, Lips said, as about 17 percent of all salamanders live in the Appalachian Mountains.
Although there is no direct way for university students to stop the deadliness of the fungus, there are ways to prevent it from entering an ecosystem.
“If you are walking from stream to stream, you can wash off your boots and stop the transfer of the fungus to the new waterway,” said Alexander Novarro, a biology doctoral candidate. “You can also wash off fishing equipment when going from waterway to waterway and also stop emptying aquariums into a nearby lake or stream.”