First Bday!

Jan 16, 2013. Today we had the first ever meeting of scientists interested in chytridiomycosis in Brazil at UNICAMP. Approximately 30 scientists were in attendance. Tommy gave an impromptu talk about his thesis project to fill in for Ananda who couldn’t make it.





The Road South

Jan 13, 2013. We return from our trip south searching for Bd-Brazil and hybrid genotypes. We have spent a week swabbing frogs and collecting tadpoles for isolation of the chytrid fungus. We visited localities in these three states: São Paulo, Paraná, and Santa Catarina. The final point of our transect was near Rancho Queimado in Santa Catarina. We found chytrid infected tadpoles at each of the localities. The rate of chytrid infection was really high, roughly the 50% previously reported for Brazilian Atlantic Forest tadpoles (Toledo et al. 2006, South American Journal of Herpetology 1:185). This blew me away as we find almost zero percent tadpoles with dekeratinized mouthparts back in Michigan. What did make me feel more at home was the presence of the North American bullfrog Lithobates catesbeianus at one of the localities. Multiple attempts were made to shoot and kill this invasive pest.



We swabbed over 500 frogs including this Phyllomedusa.


The most common frog was Hypsiboas faber.