Steven J R Allain

You're very welcome Peter and thanks for your donation. Your suggestion is something we intend to do but due to the highly enclosed area where the midwife toads are, native amphibian species are very rarely seen. Common frogs (Rana temporaria) are the next most commonly observed species after the midwife toad and unfortunately tests have revealed that swabbing them for Bd isn't reliable. The other species however are on our radar.

Hi Peter, thank you for raising some questions - I'm more than happy to answer them for you. We're focusing on the toads as we have reason to believe that they were introduced from somewhere in Spain (waiting for the results of our genetic analysis to confirm this) and virulent strains of the chytrid fungus have caused declines in the species (and others) there. You can find out more by reading this article and others like it: Bosch, J., Martı́nez-Solano, I., & Garcı́a-Parı́s, M. (2001). Evidence of a chytrid fungus infection involved in the decline of the common midwife toad (Alytes obstetricans) in protected areas of central Spain. Biological conservation, 97(3), 331-337. They could have been infected with chytrid from a native source but we have no evidence to suggest the native amphibians are currently infected. If positive results do come back from the midwife toads then we aim to look at the lineage of Bd to try to work out its origins. If they do turn out to be infected with a virulent strain which threatens local species then mitigation will need to be put in place to ensure the disease does not spread. In terms of the loss of species due to chytrid I'd recommend this nice summary: Wake, D. B., & Vredenburg, V. T. (2008). Are we in the midst of the sixth mass extinction? A view from the world of amphibians. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 11466-11473. If you have any other questions or if you feel like I haven't answered yours fully then please let me know. Steve

Thank you for the support.

Thank you for the kind words of support!

Thanks Talita, we'll keep everyone up to date as and when developments happen!

Great to hear some good news. Well done guys and I can't wait to read the paper!

That's fantastic news! I can't wait to see what the outcome of this project is.