Water Pollution Increases the Risk of Chytridiomycosis in Mexican Amphibians.

Chytridiomycosis is affecting amphibians worldwide, causing the decline and extinction of several amphibian populations. The disease is caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), a multihost pathogen living in freshwater habitats. While several environmental factors have been associated with the prevalence of Bd and its virulence, the effects of water quality on the pathogen are not clear yet.

Land-use change and rodent-borne diseases: hazards on the shared socioeconomic pathways.

Land-use change has a direct impact on species survival and reproduction, altering their spatio-temporal distributions. It acts as a selective force that favours the abundance and diversity of reservoir hosts and affects host-pathogen dynamics and prevalence. This has led to land-use change being a significant driver of infectious diseases emergence.

Chiggers (Acariformes: Trombiculoidea) do not increase rates of infection by fungus in the endemic Dwarf Mexican Treefrog (Anura: Hylidae).

Amphibian populations are globally declining at an alarming rate, and infectious diseases are among the main causes of their decline. Two micro-parasites, the fungus (Bd) and the virus (RV) have caused mass mortality of amphibians and population declines. Other, less understood epizootics are caused by macro-parasites, such as Trombiculoidea chiggers.

Insights into the Host Specificity of Mosquito-Borne Flaviviruses Infecting Wild Mammals.

Mosquito-borne flaviviruses (MBFVs) are of public and animal health concern because they cause millions of human deaths annually and impact domestic animals and wildlife globally. MBFVs are phylogenetically divided into two clades, one is transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes (Ae-MBFVs) associated with mammals and the other by Culex mosquitoes (Cx-MBFVs) associated with birds. However, this assumption has not been evaluated.

The Ecology and Phylogeny of Hosts Drive the Enzootic Infection Cycles of Hantaviruses.

Hantaviruses (Family: Hantaviridae; genus: ) and their associated human diseases occur globally and differ according to their geographic distribution. The structure of small mammal assemblages and phylogenetic relatedness among host species are suggested as strong drivers for the maintenance and spread of hantavirus infections in small mammals. We developed predictive models for hantavirus infection prevalence in rodent assemblages using defined ecological correlates from our current knowledge of hantavirus-host distributions to provide predictive models at the global and continental scale.