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The article focuses on how a deadly fungal disease, chytridiomycosis, has devastated amphibian populations globally, but researchers have found that providing warm shelters, like sun-warmed bricks, can help vulnerable species like the green and golden bell frog fight off infections.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 (UPI) -- Researchers say a common North American frog has been identified as a carrier of a deadly disease decimating world amphibian populations. Finding how the [...]

AUDIO: This is an audio recording of the distinctive 'ribbit ' call of the Pacific chorus frog (28 seconds long, MP3 file, WAV file available on request) (see also San [...]

According to the authors of a study from Corvallis, Oregon, 'Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (hereafter Batrachochytrium), a fungal pathogen of amphibians, causes the disease chytridiomycosis which is responsible for unprecedented population declines [...]

The author reflects on the need to address the threat of amphibian chytridiomycosis, an infectious skin disease, in amphibian populations throughout the Central America' forests.

SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARKS, Calif. -- From the summit of Bishop Pass in the Sierra Nevada, elevation 11,972 feet, all you can see are miles of granite peaks against the sky. There is no traffic and no pollution. The natural world seems pure and unspoiled. But appearances are deceiving. Over the last decade, disaster has struck in the form of chytridiomycosis, or chytrid, a deadly fungal disease that has driven at least 200 of the world's 6,700 amphibian species to extinction. One third of the world's frogs, toads and salamanders are threatened. Forty percent are declining. Chytrid's arrival has laid waste to the indigenous Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, Rana sierrae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Roman legend, there once was a cruel boy who tortured a fox by tying straw to its tail and then setting the straw ablaze. The god Robigus was so outraged that he punished humanity with wheat rust, a fungal nightmare that leaves crops looking as though they had been burned. For centuries afterward, the Romans sought to appease the deity through annual sacrifices of dogs and cows unlucky enough to have rust-colored fur. Robigus, Lord of Fungus, is still furiously among us, but these days he's collecting his sacrificial spoils personally. In the eastern United States, thousands of cave-dwelling bats have died of an aggressive fungal disease called white-nose syndrome, and hundreds of thousands if not millions more are at risk of contracting the condition. Frogs and salamanders worldwide are dying in catastrophic numbers, very likely of a fungal disorder called chytridiomycosis, which clogs an amphibian's skin and deranges its blood chemistry. Forests along the western and southern coasts of North America are withering as a result of fungal blooms injected into the wood by pine-boring beetles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]