Swabbing a Frog (IMAGE)

San Francisco State University

Swabbing a Frog

Caption

San Francisco State University Professor Vance Vredenburg collects a skin swab from a southern mountain yellow-legged frog in California's Sierra Nevada where he and colleagues tracked the spread of the deadly amphibian disease Chytridiomycosis during a 13-year period. New research by Vredenburg, published in PNAS, identifies a dangerous tipping point in infection intensity and suggests that mass frog deaths only tend to occur once infection intensity reaches an average of more than 10,000 fungal spores per skin swab. Chytridiomycosis is caused by an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.

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Natalie Reeder

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