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An invasive pathogen drives directional niche contractions in amphibians

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 1682–1692 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Global change is causing an unprecedented restructuring of ecosystems, with the spread of invasive species being a key driver. While population declines of native species due to invasives are well documented, much less is known about whether new biotic interactions reshape niches of native species. Here we quantify geographic range and realized-niche contractions in Australian frog species following the introduction of amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a pathogen responsible for catastrophic amphibian declines worldwide. We show that chytrid-impacted species experienced proportionately greater contractions in niche breadth than geographic distribution following chytrid emergence. Furthermore, niche contractions were directional, with contemporary distributions of chytrid-impacted species characterized by higher temperatures, lower diurnal temperature range, higher precipitation and lower elevations. Areas with these conditions may enable host persistence with chytrid through lower pathogenicity of the fungus and/or greater demographic resilience. Nevertheless, contraction to a narrower subset of environmental conditions could increase host vulnerability to other threatening processes and should be considered in assessments of extinction risk and during conservation planning. More broadly, our results emphasize that biotic interactions can strongly shape species realized niches and that large-scale niche contractions due to new species interactions—particularly emerging pathogens—could be widespread.

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Fig. 1: Map showing the study region and distribution centroids for 61 (55 extant and 6 presumed extinct) frog species included in the study.
Fig. 2: Comparison of changes in niche hypervolumes and EOO for two exemplar species.
Fig. 3: Change in niche breadth (hypervolume) and EOO between the full and post-chytrid datasets.
Fig. 4: Parameter estimates (effect sizes) from the fitted BACI models for EOO and niche breadth (hypervolume).
Fig. 5: Niche dissimilarity metrics for hypervolumes constructed using the full and post-chytrid datasets.
Fig. 6: Parameter estimates (effect sizes) from the fitted BACI models comparing standardized shifts in the niche centroid values of species.

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Data availability

Raw niche variable values associated with the occurrence records of each species can be accessed at the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8088601. Metadata for each species and results for all niche analyses are in the Supplementary Data. Note, occurrence records for sensitive species are buffered to 10 km in most public databases (non-buffered records were obtained for these species under license for this work).

Code availability

R code to replicate the hypervolume, geographic distribution (EOO), niche metrics calculations and statistical analyses can be accessed at the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8088601

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Acknowledgements

B.C.S. was supported by The Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Research Award (DE200100121). FrogID data were used with the permission of the Australian Museum.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Ben C. Scheele & Jarrod Sopniewski

  2. Macroevolution and Macroecology Group, Research School of Biology, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Ben C. Scheele & Marcel Cardillo

  3. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network and Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Geoffrey W. Heard

  4. Centre for Conservation Ecology and Genomics, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Richard P. Duncan

  5. Science, Economics and Insights Division, Department of Planning and Environment, Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia

    Graeme R. Gillespie

  6. School of Biosciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Graeme R. Gillespie

  7. College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

    Conrad J. Hoskin

  8. School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales, Australia

    Michael Mahony

  9. Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales, Australia

    David Newell

  10. Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Jodi J. L. Rowley

  11. Centre for Ecosystem Science; School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Jodi J. L. Rowley

  12. School of Biological Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia

    Jarrod Sopniewski

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  1. Ben C. Scheele
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Contributions

B.C.S. secured funding. B.C.S., R.P.D., G.W.H., M.C. and J.S. developed the study questions and design. B.C.S., G.W.H., G.R.G., C.J.H., M.M., D.N. and J.J.L.R. checked species records. J.S. and R.P.D. led analyses. B.C.S. wrote the first draft of the paper and all authors contributed substantially to revisions.

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Correspondence to Ben C. Scheele.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Luis Escobar, Adrián Garcia Rodriguez and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

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Supplementary Figs. 1–57.

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Metadata on species included in the study.

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Scheele, B.C., Heard, G.W., Cardillo, M. et al. An invasive pathogen drives directional niche contractions in amphibians. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1682–1692 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02155-0

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