Whales are dying, but numbers are unknown. Coronavirus has stalled scientific fieldwork

By SUSANNE RUST, 

ROSANNA XIA

MARCH 28, 2020

7:53 AM

As gray whales began their northern migration along the Pacific coast, earlier this month — after a year of unusually heavy die-offs — scientists were poised to watch, ready to collect information that could help them learn what was killing them.

The coronavirus outbreak, however, has largely upended that field work — and that of incalculable other ecological studies nationwide.

A large network of marine biologists and volunteers in California normally spend this time of year keeping an eye on gray whales, documenting their numbers and counting strandings as the leviathans swim from Mexico to the Arctic.

Scott Mercer, who started Point Arena’s Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study seven years ago, said the watch was called off Wednesday, as he and his wife were told by a local sheriff to disperse and go home.

“I guess two people are now considered a public gathering,” he said, with a wry chuckle.

In Los Angeles, Alisa Schulman-Janiger said she had to shut her survey down March 20, meaning this will be the first time in 37 years that data on the northern migration will not be complete.

“We had to,” said Schulman-Janiger, director of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Cetacean Society. “We couldn’t hazard anybody’s health.”

Up and down the West Coast and beyond, field research on a variety of endangered, threatened and migrating species has ground to a halt. Plovers? Abalone? They are on their own now, as scientists are forced to stay at home.

Read more

Scientists get new tool to track new pathogen killing frogs - via Herp Digest

August 14, 2018 Source: University of Central Florida

An undergraduate researcher has developed a method to screen frogs for an infectious disease that has been linked to mass die-offs of frogs around the world. Thanks to her method, scientists will be able to track the disease and try to figure out why it is triggering the deaths.

Emily Karwacki, who recently earned her biology degree from the University of Central Florida, didn't set out to track the deadly pathogen Perkinsea, but after landing a research spot in Assistant Professor Anna Savage's lab, she was set with the task of trying to test for the disease. Frogs, which are indicators of environmental changes, have been dying off in mass quantities. They are also an important part of the food chain. Without frogs, many other species would die, Savage said.

Scientists have narrowed down what's most affecting frogs to three pathogens, including Perkinsea.

"Not a lot of people have studied Perkinsea because it has only recently been identified," Karwacki said. "It's different from other diseases because of the way it attacks the host.”

The pathogen enters the frog through the skin or may be ingested through its mouth. Scientists know it goes straight to the liver, embedding itself, before moving onto the rest of the tissue. It spreads and then the frog dies.

Karwacki, along with Savage and doctoral student Matt Atkinson, suspected that Perkinsea was killing frogs in Central Florida, but the researchers needed a way to test for it first. Karwacki was tasked with creating the molecular test. The method is called qPCR, but because Perkinsea was newly discovered, there wasn't enough genetic data to make a specific test. Karwacki had to create what's called a primer pair, and match it with a DNA sequence of Perkinsea, to get the qPCR test to work.

"The test amplifies the DNA so you know if your pathogen is there or not," Emily said. "I had to align a bunch of DNA sequences from our samples with others from around the word to create my primer set. It was four or five months before we had both the primers and the probe to create a successful test.”

Karwacki was the first to do this for Perkinsea and her work was recently published in the journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms.

Using Karwacki's qPCR assay, the team of researchers found that 25 percent of the frogs they sampled tested positive for the pathogen. They sampled three sites in Florida: Gold Head Branch State Park in Keystone Heights, the UCF Arboretum in Orlando, and the Archbold Biological Station in Venus. The area they found with the most prevalent infection was Gold Head Branch, which is the farthest north. Archbold, the farthest south, had no infection at all. "There are only three papers on this disease that identify it specifically," Karwacki said. "It has greatly been affecting amphibians in the southeastern United States and should be studied more. It's most likely at least a co-factor in these extinction events we are seeing.”

Karwacki's method will now allow researchers all over the world to test for the disease. After graduating this summer, she is working on a new study, swabbing frog tissue samples at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. She's swabbed more than 900 samples, and has found that Perkinsea dates back to 1922. This proves the disease has been in frog populations before, and scientists are trying to figure out why it's only now killing off large numbers of frogs. "Now with my qPCR, people can test areas where they are trying to release frogs to rebound populations," Karwacki said. "Scientists can test water and soil to see if Perkinsea is there so we don't send frogs out to die.”

Karwacki is entering the nonprofit business management master's program at UCF before pursuing graduate school. She will continue her work as a research associate in Savage's lab.

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Central Florida. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

EE Karwacki, MS Atkinson, RJ Ossiboff, AE Savage. Novel quantitative PCR assay specific for the emerging Perkinsea amphibian pathogen reveals seasonal infection dynamics. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, 2018; 129 (2): 85 DOI: 10.3354/dao03239

The disappearance of common species

Insect die-off: Even common species are becoming rare

Date:  February 1, 2018

Source:  Technical University of Munich (TUM)

Summary:

Scientists were able to show that currently widespread insects are threatened with a serious decline in species diversity in the near future. The research team lists fragmentation of habitats and intensification of agriculture as reasons for the decline of these 'generalists.'

Continued  

Emerging disease further jeopardizes North American frogs

Date:  September 19, 2017

Source:  US Geological Survey

A deadly amphibian disease called severe Perkinsea infections, or SPI, is the cause of many large-scale frog die-offs in the United States, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Frogs and salamanders are currently among the most threatened groups of animals on the planet. The two most common frog diseases, chytridiomycosis and ranavirus infection , are linked to frog population declines worldwide. The new study suggests that that SPI is the third most common infectious disease of frogs.

Scientists with the USGS studied 247 frog die-offs in 43 states from 1999 through 2015. The researchers found that SPI caused 21 of the mass mortalities in 10 states spanning from Alaska to Florida, all involving tadpoles. Up to 95 percent of the tadpole populations died during the SPI mortality events.

Continued  

Attack of the Killer Fungi: Rising Threat Worries Scientists

An unprecedented number of diseases caused by fungi have been causing some of the most severe die-offs and extinctions ever witnessed in wild species and jeopardizing crops to boot, scientists now report.

Fungi are wiping out amphibians on several continents, decimating bats in eastern North America, contributing to the disappearance of bees dubbed colony collapse disorder, and killing corals and sea turtles.

They are even threatening humans, if indirectly, by attacking crops. Fungi and fungilike organisms called oomycetes can cause significant losses to rice, wheat, maize, potatoes and soybeans, according to the researchers who write that the problems "vary regionally but pose a current and growing threat to food security."

To determine if fungi are causing more diseases and extinctions among plants and animals, the team, led by Matthew Fisher at the Imperial College London, combed through years of scientific reports.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/19628-fungal-diseases-emerging-threat.html