澳大利亚麦考瑞大学Anthony W. Waddle等研究人员发现，热点庇护所激发青蛙对壶菌病的抵抗力。2024年6月26日，《自然》杂志在线发表了这项成果。

为了在野外与壶菌病共存，研究人员设计了一种利用宿主防御能力和病原体脆弱性的干预措施。研究人员展示了阳光加热的人工庇护所能吸引濒危蛙类，并使体温高到足以清除感染，通过这种方式恢复后，即使在最适合真菌生长的低温条件下，蛙类也能对壶菌病产生抵抗力。这些研究结果提供了一种简单、廉价和广泛适用的策略，可以在自然界中缓冲蛙类对壶菌病的感染。这种缓冲区对研究人员测试的濒危物种非常有用，并将对具有类似生态环境的两栖动物物种具有更广泛的实用性。

此外，该概念还可以应用于其他野生动物疾病，因为宿主和病原体的生理差异可以被利用。庇护所由廉价且容易获得的材料制成，因此可以迅速被野生动物管理者和公众采用。总之，单靠保护栖息地并不能保护受入侵疾病影响的物种，但对微生境结构的简单处理却能改变濒危两栖动物的存亡。

据了解，生物多样性面临的许多威胁是无法消除的；例如，入侵病原体可能无处不在。壶菌病是一种真菌疾病，已在全球蔓延，导致至少90种两栖动物灭绝，数百种两栖动物也受到严重影响。这种疾病一旦传播到新的环境中，很可能成为该生态系统的永久组成部分。

附：英文原文

Title: Hotspot shelters stimulate frog resistance to chytridiomycosis

Author: Waddle, Anthony W., Clulow, Simon, Aquilina, Amy, Sauer, Erin L., Kaiser, Shannon W., Miller, Claire, Flegg, Jennifer A., Campbell, Patricia T., Gallagher, Harrison, Dimovski, Ivana, Lambreghts, Yorick, Berger, Lee, Skerratt, Lee F., Shine, Richard

Issue&Volume: 2024-06-26

Abstract: Many threats to biodiversity cannot be eliminated; for example, invasive pathogens may be ubiquitous. Chytridiomycosis is a fungal disease that has spread worldwide, driving at least 90 amphibian species to extinction, and severely affecting hundreds of others1,2,3,4. Once the disease spreads to a new environment, it is likely to become a permanent part of that ecosystem. To enable coexistence with chytridiomycosis in the field, we devised an intervention that exploits host defences and pathogen vulnerabilities. Here we show that sunlight-heated artificial refugia attract endangered frogs and enable body temperatures high enough to clear infections, and that having recovered in this way, frogs are subsequently resistant to chytridiomycosis even under cool conditions that are optimal for fungal growth. Our results provide a simple, inexpensive and widely applicable strategy to buffer frogs against chytridiomycosis in nature. The refugia are immediately useful for the endangered species we tested and will have broader utility for amphibian species with similar ecologies. Furthermore, our concept could be applied to other wildlife diseases in which differences in host and pathogen physiologies can be exploited. The refugia are made from cheap and readily available materials and therefore could be rapidly adopted by wildlife managers and the public. In summary, habitat protection alone cannot protect species that are affected by invasive diseases, but simple manipulations to microhabitat structure could spell the difference between the extinction and the persistence of endangered amphibians.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07582-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07582-y