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Brief Communication Arising

Nature 447, E4-E5 (31 May 2007) | doi:10.1038/nature05941; Received 14 February 2007; Accepted 10 May 2007; Published online 30 May 2007

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Ecology: The proximate cause of frog declines?

Ines Di Rosa1, Francesca Simoncelli1, Anna Fagotti1 & Rita Pascolini1

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Arising from: J. A. Pounds et al. Nature 439, 161–167 (2006); Pounds et al. reply

Pounds et al.1 argue that global warming contributes to amphibian declines by encouraging outbreaks of the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Although our findings agree with the climate-linked epidemic hypothesis1, 2, 3, 4, this pathogen is probably not the only proximate factor in such cases: in the Trasimeno Lake area of Umbria in central Italy, for example, the water frog Rana lessonae first declined in the late 1990s, yet chytridiomycosis was not observed until 2003 (refs 5, 6). Here we show that the chytrid was common there throughout 1999–2002, in a previously unknown form that did not cause disease. We therefore think that the focus by Pounds et al. on a single pathogen is hard to justify because the host–parasite ecology is at present so poorly understood.