Mastodawn

Now out!: "United States amphibian imports pose a disease risk to salamanders despite Lacey Act regulations"

The 2016 Lacey Act aimed to prevent the spread of Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal), a deadly fungal pathogen threatening salamander biodiversity in North America, by restricting trade in certain species. How is it doing?

Evan Eskew, Oliver Stringam, Pat Connelly + I compiled trade data to find out.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-01004-z

#Bsal #OneHealth #Frogs #Salamander #WildlifeTrade

United States amphibian imports pose a disease risk to salamanders despite Lacey Act regulations - Communications Earth & Environment

Despite reduced imports of amphibians targeted by a 2016 Lacey Act interim rule, an amphibian trade analysis suggests salamander populations in the US remain at risk from the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans due to sustained imports of other carrier taxa.

Nature

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Noam Ross Oct 4, 2023

On one hand, the Lacey Act has done remarkably well: Imports of the 20 salamander genera targeted by the Lacey Act have been strongly suppressed.

However, since 2016 we've learned of more species that can carry the BSal fungus, especially frogs of the Rana genus. There is a *lot* of trade in Rana, many times more than ever was of salamanders, and it has gone *up* since 2016.

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Noam Ross Oct 4, 2023

Bsal policy needs an update, but a fine-grained look at the import data helps point to the direction. The largest share of Rana come from Taiwan, where Bsal has been found in wild amphibians, then Ecuador, Singapore, and China. Targeted surveillance at major ports of entry, and cooperative initiatives to screen and combat disease at the source, can be part of a multi-pronged approach. We touch on a number of possible policy mechanisms, more robustly covered in https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.8668163

Mitigating Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans in Europe: supplementary material

The infectious chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) has been responsible for severe population declines of salamander populations in Europe. Serious population declines and loss of urodelan diversity may occur if appropriate action is not taken to mitigate against the further spread and impact of Bsal. We provide an overview of several potential mitigation methods, and describe their possible advantages and limitations. We conclude that long-term, context-dependent, multi-faceted approaches are needed to successfully mitigate adverse effects of Bsal, and that these approaches should be initiated pre-arrival of the pathogen. The establishment of ex situ assurance colonies, or management units, for species threatened with extinction, should be considered as soon as possible. While ex situ conservation and preventive measures aimed at improving biosecurity by limiting amphibian trade may be implemented quickly, major challenges that lie ahead are in designing in situ disease containment and mitigation post-arrival and in increasing public awareness.

figshare

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Noam Ross Oct 4, 2023

There's a long story behind these data. When this work began one had to make FOIA requests to get animal import data from USFWS, and even then it was tricky. Thankfully they began releasing this information regularly in recent years, an important step for science and conservation.

In that spirit, find all the #rstats analysis code and data at: https://github.com/ecohealthalliance/amphibian_trade

GitHub - ecohealthalliance/amphibian_trade: Documenting amphibian trade into the United States

Documenting amphibian trade into the United States - GitHub - ecohealthalliance/amphibian_trade: Documenting amphibian trade into the United States

GitHub

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Nistara Randhawa Oct 5, 2023

@noamross Nice work Noam! EcoHealth Alliance's lemis package has been super helpful as well btw!