A skin-eating fungus that infiltrated Europe through the global wildlife trade is threatening to inflict massive losses on the continent's salamanders, including extinction of whole species and could do the same in North America.
The fungus, first detected in Europe last year, has killed salamanders in the Netherlands and Belgium and will likely reach other European nations soon, an international research team said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Their study, published in the journal Science, found that the fungus can kill numerous kinds of salamanders and newts, a subgroup of the salamander family, but not other amphibians, like frogs and toads.
The scientists have found no sign of the fungus in North American amphibians, though they are worried that it is only a matter of time before it surfaces via a pet trade that has funneled millions of Chinese fire belly newts to the United States.
Researchers were able to track the origins and geographical presence of the fungus, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, by examining about 5,400 samples accounting for "about 150 varieties of amphibians" in Europe, Asia, North America and Africa.
They were also able to expose 35 amphibian species to the fungus to learn which were vulnerable, according to Reuters.
The fungus was discovered by scientists probing a die-off of fire salamanders in the Netherlands.
"There is little we can do to stop further spread on mainland Europe other than preventing people from moving infected salamanders between countries," said Matthew Fisher, a professor of fungal disease epidemiology at Imperial College London who was one of the researchers.
"If (the fungus) arrives in the USA then millions, if not billions, of salamanders are likely to die and species extinctions may occur," he added.
The findings illustrate the threat posed to native creatures by pathogens spread through the international wildlife trade. Asian salamanders and newts are sold worldwide in large numbers.
"The uncontrolled trade of animals should be regulated worldwide, and traded animals should be tested for the presence of pathogens that can affect wildlife with special emphasis to prevent introduction of (the fungus) to islands and regions where it is currently absent," said An Martel, a veterinarian at Ghent University in Belgium who led the study, according to Reuters.
The fungus appears to have originated in Southeast Asia 30 million years ago.
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