Devastating disease can cause increased breeding effort and success that improves population resilience

Abstract

Novel and invasive diseases are a key threat to wildlife. The disease chytridiomycosis has had devastating global impacts, but some amphibian species can persist and even rebound after severe declines. Understanding how these species persist is critical to discovering management techniques for supporting declining species. Here, we explored the impacts of disease on reproduction in the threatened Litoria verreauxii alpina, investigating its effect on reproductive effort and success using a combination of laboratory-based clinical trials and field sampling through capture-mark-recapture surveys. We found that male frogs are increasing various facets of their breeding effort resulting in incre..