Amphibians acquire resistance to live and dead fungus overcoming fungal immunosuppression

Emerging fungal pathogens pose a greater threat to biodiversity than any other parasitic group, causing declines of many taxa, including bats, corals, bees, snakes and amphibians. Currently, there is little evidence that wild animals can acquire resistance to these pathogens. Batrachochytrium dendro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 2014-07, Vol.511 (7508), p.224-227
Main Authors: McMahon, Taegan A, Sears, Brittany F, Venesky, Matthew D, Bessler, Scott M, Brown, Jenise M, Deutsch, Kaitlin, Halstead, Neal T, Lentz, Garrett, Tenouri, Nadia, Young, Suzanne, Civitello, David J, Ortega, Nicole, Fites, J Scott, Reinert, Laura K, Rollins-Smith, Louise A, Raffel, Thomas R, Rohr, Jason R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amphibians
Amphibians - immunology
Amphibians - microbiology
Animal populations
Animals
Antigens, Fungal - immunology
Cell Proliferation
Chytridiomycota - immunology
Diseases
Experiments
Frogs
Fungi
Fungi, Pathogenic
Gene expression
Generalized linear models
Health aspects
Immune response
Immunology
Infections
Lymphocyte Count
Lymphocytes
Lymphocytes - cytology
Mycoses - immunology
Mycoses - prevention & control
Peptides
Physiological aspects
Population Density
Regulation
Survival Analysis
Toads
Zoological research
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Summary:Emerging fungal pathogens pose a greater threat to biodiversity than any other parasitic group, causing declines of many taxa, including bats, corals, bees, snakes and amphibians. Currently, there is little evidence that wild animals can acquire resistance to these pathogens. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is a pathogenic fungus implicated in the recent global decline of amphibians. Here we demonstrate that three species of amphibians can acquire behavioural or immunological resistance to B. dendrobatidis. Frogs learned to avoid the fungus after just one B. dendrobatidis exposure and temperature-induced clearance. In subsequent experiments in which B. dendrobatidis avoidance was prevented, the number of previous exposures was a negative predictor of B. dendrobatidis burden on frogs and B. dendrobatidis-induced mortality, and was a positive predictor of lymphocyte abundance and proliferation. These results suggest that amphibians can acquire immunity to B. dendrobatidis that overcomes pathogen-induced immunosuppression and increases their survival. Importantly, exposure to dead fungus induced a similar magnitude of acquired resistance as exposure to live fungus. Exposure of frogs to B. dendrobatidis antigens might offer a practical way to protect pathogen-naive amphibians and facilitate the reintroduction of amphibians to locations in the wild where B. dendrobatidis persists. Moreover, given the conserved nature of vertebrate immune responses to fungi and the fact that many animals are capable of learning to avoid natural enemies, these results offer hope that other wild animal taxa threatened by invasive fungi might be rescued by management approaches based on herd immunity.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/nature13491