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Collapse of amphibian communities due to an introduced Ranavirus.

Price, SJ; Garner, TW; Nichols, RA; Balloux, F; Ayres, C; Mora-Cabello de Alba, A; Bosch, J; (2014) Collapse of amphibian communities due to an introduced Ranavirus. Curr Biol , 24 (21) 2586 - 2591. 10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.028. Green open access

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Abstract

The emergence of infectious diseases with a broad host range can have a dramatic impact on entire communities and has become one of the main threats to biodiversity. Here, we report the simultaneous exploitation of entire communities of potential hosts with associated severe declines following invasion by a novel viral pathogen. We found two phylogenetically related, highly virulent viruses (genus Ranavirus, family Iridoviridae) causing mass mortality in multiple, diverse amphibian hosts in northern Spain, as well as a third, relatively avirulent virus. We document host declines in multiple species at multiple sites in the region. Our work reveals a group of pathogens that seem to have preexisting capacity to infect and evade immunity in multiple diverse and novel hosts, and that are exerting massive impacts on host communities. This report provides an exceptional record of host population trends being tracked in real time following emergence of a wildlife disease and a striking example of a novel, generalist pathogen repeatedly crossing the species barrier with catastrophic consequences at the level of host communities.

Type: Article
Title: Collapse of amphibian communities due to an introduced Ranavirus.
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.028
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.028
Language: English
Additional information: © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1457598
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