from the AmphibiaWeb site:
Can amphibians in the wild be saved from the deadly fungal disease chytridiomycosis, using bioaugmentation of naturally occurring amphibian anti-fungal skin bacteria? This summer will be the first test, in California.
Mountain yellow-legged frogs (Rana muscosa and Rana sierrae) were once the most common vertebrates in the Sierra Nevada mountains but now are critically endangered, with many populations decimated by chytrid fungal infection. Wild frogs carry many different kinds of beneficial skin bacteria; at least one secretes a peptide called violacein that protects wild frogs against infection by the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Mountain yellow-legged frog populations that have little to no violacein-secreting bacteria succumb to Bd fungal infection and suffer mass mortality.
In the lab, inoculation with these naturally occurring beneficial bacteria (bioaugmentation) works to protect frogs (and salamanders) against fungal infection and death from chytridiomycosis. Vance Vredenburg of SFSU will lead a project in August 2010 to see whether bioaugmentation can help save some of the few remaining wild mountain yellow-legged frogs in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Park. See the July 2010 Scientific American article at scientificamerican.com for more details.
