THE CHYTRID BLINDERS 2.0: HOW ARE WE DOING?

Amphibians are declining around the world and infectious diseases are thought to play a key role in these declines, along with habitat destruction and other environmental factors. Since the late 1900s, several emerging infections have been identified in amphibians. The chytrids, of which there are two known to affect amphibians, Batrachochytrium dendtrobatids, and B. salamandrivorans; and ranaviruses are perhaps the most well-known and studied. There are also other, lesser known and studied pathogenic agents such as Perkinsea spp. and herpesviruses; that have emerged in approximately the same timeline, which may also be contributing to amphibian population dynamics. In this piece we examine the progress that has been made over the past decade in understanding ‘The Big Three’ and specifically how the emergence of B. salamandrivorans has brought together much of the amphibian disease world in the last half of the 2010s.

AMPHIBIAN: FRIENDS OF FARMERS

Amphibians are vital for proper functioning of an ecosystem. Different genera of frogs and toads play a dual role as prey and predator in an ecosystem. The most important role is they act as a food for higher chordates like snakes, birds and mammals. Due to huge use of pesticides and chemical fertilizer in agriculture sector is one of the important cause of decline of amphibian population in the world. On medical point of view they are very signicant in controlling the different genera of mosquitoes like Anopheles, Aedes and Culex which are responsible for malaria, yellow fever and dengue in human population. The rice eld lled with water give opportunity to frogs to live in that in return they control insect and pest of rice crops.

Telomere attrition with age in a wild amphibian population

Telomere shortening with age has been documented in many organisms, but few studies have reported telomere length measurements in amphibians, and no information is available for growth after metamorphosis, nor in wild populations. We provide both cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence of net telomere attrition with age in a wild amphibian population of natterjack toads ( Epidalea calamita ). Based on age-estimation by skeletochronology and qPCR telomere length measurements in the framework of an individual-based monitoring programme, we confirmed telomere attrition in recaptured males. Our results support that toads experience telomere attrition throughout their ontogeny, and that most attrition occurs during the first 1–2 years. We did not find associations between telomere length and inbreeding or body condition. Our results on telomere length dynamics under natural conditions confirm telomere shortening with age in amphibians and provide quantification of wide telomere length variation within and among age-classes in a wild breeding population.