{"id":546663,"date":"2026-07-17T21:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/546663\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:06:12","slug":"one-fungus-has-caused-more-extinctions-than-any-other-infectious-disease-some-toads-have-found-a-way-to-survive-it-sciencealert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/546663\/","title":{"rendered":"One Fungus Has Caused More Extinctions Than Any Other Infectious Disease. Some Toads Have Found a Way to Survive It : ScienceAlert"},"content":{"rendered":"

Across the world, entire species<\/a> of frogs and toads are being wiped out by a relentless fungal infection, commonly known as the chytrid fungus.<\/p>\n

For most amphibians, the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis<\/a> is a death sentence. <\/p>\n

It’s caused more global species extinction events<\/a> than any other infectious disease.<\/p>\n

And yet somehow, high in the Pyrenees<\/a>, a few populations of common midwife toads have managed to survive an outbreak that has almost entirely wiped out their neighbors.<\/p>\n

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Now, a team led by researchers from University College London (UCL), the Zoological Society London (ZSL), and Imperial College London has discovered<\/a> how these toads are defying death.<\/p>\n

The key, it turns out, is secreting unique peptides earlier than other toads, stopping the fungus from taking hold.<\/p>\n

The midwife toad is already a bit of a weirdo.<\/p>\n

There are a few species, but it’s Alytes obstetricans<\/a> we’re talking about here.<\/p>\n

The male toads carry fertilized eggs around on their back and thighs to protect them from getting eaten, hence the name ‘midwife’.<\/p>\n

\"SomeThe common midwife toad has been badly affected by chytrid fungus infections in the Pyrenees, as a result of climate change<\/a>. But a small handful of populations have managed to thrive in spite of it all. (Phillip Jervis<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Then, when the eggs are about ready to pop, the toad takes them down to the nearest water, where the tadpoles leap from their daddy’s posterior into the great unknown.<\/p>\n

In the case of the Pyrenees midwife toads, that ‘unknown’ is the stunning clear waters of high-altitude mountain lakes: Lac d’Arlet, Puits d’Arious, Lac de Lhurs, and Ib\u00f3n de Acherito. <\/p>\n

\"SomeIb\u00f3n de Acherito, a Pyrenees lake that is home to one of the recovering toad populations. (Phillip Jervis<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Midwife toads across the Western Pyrenees have been nearly wiped out by chytrid infections, ever since the fungus reached the region 19 years ago.<\/p>\n

Previously, these mountains were a safe refuge from the fungus. The lakes stay frozen for half the year, and the cold temperatures have kept the fungus at bay.<\/p>\n

But as humans continue to burn fossil fuels, climate change has been warming up the mountains<\/a>. And there’s nothing a fungus loves more than a warm, damp climate.<\/p>\n

Somehow, though, a few toad populations have managed to survive, in spite of their B. dendrobatidis infections: toads at Ib\u00f3n de Acherito, Puits d’Arious, and Lac de Lhurs. <\/p>\n

The researchers compared recently metamorphosed toads from these lakes with those from a population that has been doing much worse: the toads at Lac d’Arlet.<\/p>\n

\"SomeWhen the toads’ immune defenses matured early, they had better chances of surviving fungal infection. (Jervis et al., Nat. Chem. Biol., 2026)<\/p>\n

In the toad populations that had recovered from fungal outbreaks, they found a particular kind of immune defense matured much earlier, with the toads beginning to secrete antimicrobial peptides from their skin while they were still in the tadpole stage.<\/p>\n

That difference is crucial. <\/p>\n

The fungus can only survive on skin that contains keratin, which is present in mature toads, but not tadpoles or larvae. <\/p>\n

That’s why chytrid fungus is so lethal<\/a> to these creatures: frogs and toads absorb most of the oxygen and water they need to survive through their skin. If that porous membrane becomes blocked up by the fungus, it leads to a fatal chain reaction.<\/p>\n

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Carrying protection against the fungus during the vulnerable transition phase into keratin-laden adulthood could be the key to their survival.<\/p>\n

“The next step is to look at what factors prevent these immune systems from maturing early,” says<\/a> ZSL herpetologist Phillip Jervis, the lead author of the study.<\/p>\n

“This could be down to genetics or environmental factors such as temperature or the presence of trout \u2013 a major danger for tadpoles that could drive them to develop into adults faster so they can leave the water, meaning less time for their immune system to develop.”<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

In the meantime, the team also found an enormous amount of peptides in the toads’ skin secretions \u2013 1,152 in total, out of which only seven were previously known.<\/p>\n

That diversity of peptides also seems to give toads an edge when it comes to surviving chytrid fungus. <\/p>\n

Those that reached a higher diversity in their tadpole phase were thriving, even through outbreaks, while those that did not develop that diversity while young were more likely to die of the disease.<\/p>\n

“We discovered a far greater diversity of peptides than we expected. We now need to understand how they work to control pathogens and which ones are anti-microbial,” says<\/a> chemist Alethea Tabor.<\/p>\n

Related: Billions of Sea Stars Are Wasting Away, And We Finally Know Why<\/a><\/p>\n

As well as having potential to help in the fight against the mass extinction of frogs and toads, this discovery could have applications in human medicine.<\/p>\n

“A lot of medicines for humans were initially found in the natural world \u2013 penicillin came from fungi, for example,” Tabor says<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“These peptides are new leads that could be used to help human health, especially as we have our own problems as a species with the rise of antimicrobial resistance, which is requiring us to find new ways to treat infections.”<\/p>\n

The research is published in Nature Chemical Biology<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was fact-checked by Rebecca Dyer<\/a> and edited by Fiona MacDonald<\/a>. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Across the world, entire species of frogs and toads are being wiped out by a relentless fungal infection,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,371,141],"class_list":["post-546663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-msft-content","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}