Addition of antifungal skin bacteria to salamanders ameliorates the effects of chytridiomycosis
Addition of antifungal skin bacteria to salamanders ameliorates the effects of chytridiomycosis
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DOI：
10.3354/dao02004
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发表时间：
2009-01-28
影响因子：
1.4
通讯作者：
Alford, Ross A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Harris, Reid N.;Lauer, Antje;Alford, Ross A.
壶菌病由皮肤真菌 Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) 引起，已导致偏远受保护栖息地的许多两栖动物数量下降。在了解病原体的生命周期、记录其对两栖动物个体和种群的破坏性影响以及了解疾病爆发的方式和原因方面已经取得了进展。目前还没有研究直接解决如何防止疾病爆发导致物种数量下降和灭绝的关键问题。我们已经鉴定出许多两栖动物皮肤细菌能够在体外抑制 Bd。在这里，我们证明了一种抗 Bd 皮肤细菌可以成功地添加到蝾螈 Plethodon cinereus 的皮肤中，并且添加这种细菌可以减轻实验感染个体的疾病症状的严重程度。这是首次证明操纵两栖动物物种的天然皮肤微生物群可以改变病原体对受感染两栖动物的负面影响，并且似乎是首次证明对任何野生动物物种进行表生操纵可以减轻新出现的传染病的影响。这表明，对皮肤微生物群进行益生菌或生物增强操作可能有可能降低两栖动物对自然界疾病的易感性。这是第一个可以减缓或阻止流行病爆发并允许成功重新引入已在野外局部或全球灭绝的两栖动物物种的方法。我们的结果还提出了一种机制，通过气候变化对抗真菌细菌群落的影响，将气候变化与壶菌病爆发的可能性联系起来。
Chytridiomycosis, caused by the skin fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has caused population declines of many amphibians in remote protected habitats. Progress has been made in understanding the pathogen's life cycle, documenting its devastating effects on individual amphibians and on populations, and understanding how and why disease outbreaks occur. No research has directly addressed the critical question of how to prevent declines and extinctions caused by outbreaks of the disease. We have identified a number of bacterial species of amphibian skin that inhibit Bd in vitro. Here, we demonstrate that a species of anti-Bd skin bacteria can be successfully added to skins of salamanders Plethodon cinereus, and that addition of this bacterium reduced the severity of a disease symptom in experimentally infected individuals. This is the first demonstration that manipulating the natural skin microbiota of an amphibian species can alter the pathogen's negative effects on infected amphibians and appears to be the first demonstration that an epibiotic manipulation of any wildlife species can lessen the effects of an emerging infectious disease. It suggests that probiotic or bio-augmentation manipulations of cutaneous microbiota could have the potential to reduce susceptibility of amphibians to the disease in nature. This is the first approach suggested that could slow or halt epidemic outbreaks and allow successful reintroductions of amphibian species that have become locally or globally extinct in the wild. Our results also suggest a mechanism for the association of climate change and the likelihood of chytridiomycosis outbreaks via the effects of the former on antifungal bacterial communities.