Environmental determinants of mass extinctions by emerging disease: why does chytridiomycosis exterminate frogs in rainforest but not in open forest?

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The emerging fungal disease known as chytridiomycosis is causing decline and extinctions of many species of frogs around the world; Australia is no exception. Although a threat abatement plan is currently in place, a successful management strategy to deal with this problem in the wild does not exist. In the wet tropics region of north Queensland, healthy populations of torrent frogs exist in the drier areas adjacent to the rainforest where they disappeared. Understanding how they coexist with this pathogen, as well as their dispersal capacity to recolonise the rainforest is basic information necessary to aid theses species in future conservation efforts.