18
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Effects of amphibian chytrid fungus exposure on American toads in the presence of an insecticide.

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPubMed
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Abiotic factors such as pesticides may alter the impact of a pathogen on hosts, which could have implications for host-pathogen interactions and may explain variation in disease outbreaks in nature. In the present laboratory experiment, American toad (Anaxyrus americanus) metamorphs were exposed to the amphibian chytrid fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and environmentally relevant concentrations of the insecticide malathion to determine whether malathion altered the effects of Bd exposure on growth and survival of toad metamorphs. Exposure to Bd significantly decreased survival over the 51 d of the experiment, suggesting that Bd could reduce recruitment into the terrestrial life stage when exposure occurs at metamorphosis. Malathion did not impact survival, but a 12-h exposure at metamorphosis significantly reduced terrestrial growth. Toads that were exposed to both Bd and malathion showed a nonsignificant trend toward the smallest growth compared with other treatments. The present study suggests that Bd may pose a threat to American toads even though population declines have not been observed for this species; in addition, the presence of both the insecticide malathion and Bd could reduce terrestrial growth, which could have implications for lifetime fitness and suggests that environmental factors could play a role in pathogen impacts in nature.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          Environ. Toxicol. Chem.
          Environmental toxicology and chemistry
          Wiley
          1552-8618
          0730-7268
          Nov 2014
          : 33
          : 11
          Affiliations
          [1 ] Department of Biology, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA.
          Article
          10.1002/etc.2709
          25099070
          73127711-e992-420a-af84-93aedaa9f453
          History

          Amphibians,Anaxyrus americanus,Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis,Chytridiomycosis,Malathion,Organophosphorus insecticide,Pesticides

          Comments

          Comment on this article