Research
The emergence of infectious disease in wildlife is driven by anthropogenic factors such as habitat conversion, climate change, and animal translocation. Newly introduced or emerging diseases pose a significant threat to naïve host populations and are of conservation concern because of their potentially devastating effects on small populations or endangered species. One of the most effective means of spreading pathogens to new locations is the movement of wildlife for human economic purposes. Animal translocations drive disease emergence as they facilitate the dispersal of not only wildlife to novel environments, but of their pathogens as well. The international trade in wildlife is a mechanism for global dissemination of animal hosts and their pathogens. Movement through the trade affects intra and inter-specific host contact rates and host densities. This affects parasite transmission rates and can lead to increased pathogen prevalence in traded animals.
Of at least eighteen known emerging pathogens that infect wildlife, one of the most widely distributed, and most significant for its role in population declines, is the fungal parasite Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. B. dendrobatidis is the causal infectious agent for cutaneous chytridiomycosis, an emerging infectious disease found in more than 140 amphibian species worldwide. B. dendrobatidis, has been linked to at least one global amphibian extinction, and is currently a listed threat for the majority of critically endangered amphibians on the IUCN red list.
My research looks at the prevalence of the fungal parasite B. dendrobatidis in South American tree frogs imported to the
