Posted on 03/29/2019 6:24:52 AM PDT by Red Badger
A doomsday fungus known as Bd has condemned more species to extinction than any other pathogen.
A century ago, a strain of pandemic flu killed up to 100 million people—5 percent of the world’s population. In 2013, a new mystery illness swept the western coast of North America, causing starfish to disintegrate. In 2015, a big-nosed Asian antelope known as the saiga lost two-thirds of its population—some 200,000 individuals—to what now looks to be a bacterial infection. But none of these devastating infections comes close to the destructive power of Bd—a singularly apocalyptic fungus that’s unrivaled in its ability not only to kill animals, but to delete entire species from existence.
Bd—Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in full—kills frogs and other amphibians by eating away at their skin and triggering fatal heart attacks. It’s often said that the fungus has caused the decline or extinction of 200 amphibian species, but that figure is almost two decades out-of-date. New figures, compiled by a team led by Ben Scheele from the Australian National University, are much worse.
Scheele’s team estimates that the fungus has caused the decline of 501 amphibian species—about 6.5 percent of the known total. Of these, 90 have been wiped out entirely. Another 124 have fallen by more than 90 percent, and their odds of recovery are slim. Never in recorded history has a single disease burned down so much of the tree of life. “It rewrote our understanding of what disease could do to wildlife,” Scheele says.
“It’s a terrifying summary,” says Jodi Rowley from the Australian Museum. “We knew it was bad, but this really confirms how bad. And these are just the declines we know about.”
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
liberalism?
There’s a fungus among us!
As usual, I see the author gets around to blaming humans.
Lemme guess - fork over large amounts of dollars to the UN and the problem will magically disappear.
A bacterium that completely kills off its hosts is not very smart.
Golly Gee Wiz just what I want to read with My Morning Coffee.
Time to switch to Gin and Grapefruit Juice.
Ping
“No one knew what the problem was, let alone the culprit.”
I remember reading … global warming
doomsday fungus
It sure seems to be successful, though.
Imagine how good the world was before it was cursed by the fall of man.
Genetically modify the fungi to target cane toads.
You said a mouthful there. I'm not sure we can imagine it.
It’s a Woke bacterium, decrying multicellular privilege.
Trump’s fault.
... if you’re a frog.
You want to see terrifying? Walk into any nursing home. That will bring you back to reality and what really matters.
>> A bacterium that completely kills off its hosts is not very smart. <<
Not a bacterium, not species-specific, not “trapped” inside its own host.
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