Realistic heat pulses protect frogs from disease under simulated rainforest frog thermal regimes

Abstract

Recent emergences of fungal diseases have caused catastrophic global losses of biodiversity. Temperature is one of the most important factors influencing host–fungus associations but the effects of temperature variability on disease development are rarely examined. The chytrid pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has had severe effects on populations of hundreds of rainforest-endemic amphibian species but we know little about the effects of rainforest-specific host body temperature cycles on infection patterns. To address this challenge, we used body temperature regimes experienced in nature by frogs in the Australian Wet Tropics to guide a controlled experiment investigating the eff..