phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at o:3195 DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0298591 Alpine salamanders at risk? The current status of an emerging fungal pathogen Amphibians globally suffer from emerging infectious diseases like chytridiomycosis caused by the continuously spreading chytrid fungi. One is Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) and its disease ? the 'salamander plague' ? which is lethal to several caudate taxa. Recently introduced into Western Europe, long distance dispersal of Bsal, likely through human mediation, has been reported. Herein we study if Alpine salamanders (Salamandra atra and S. lanzai) are yet affected by the salamander plague in the wild. Members of the genus Salamandra are highly susceptible to Bsal leading to the lethal disease. Moreover, ecological modelling has shown that the Alps and Dinarides, where Alpine salamanders occur, are generally suitable for Bsal. We analysed skin swabs of 818 individuals of Alpine salamanders and syntopic amphibians at 40 sites between 2017 to 2022. Further, we compiled those with published data from 319 individuals from 13 sites concluding that Bsal infections were not detected. Our results suggest that the salamander plague so far is absent from the geographic ranges of Alpine salamanders. That means that there is still a chance to timely implement surveillance strategies. Among others, we recommend prevention measures, citizen science approaches, and ex situ conservation breeding of endemic salamandrid lineages. eng Animals; Batrachochytriumgeneticspathogenicity; Mycosesveterinarymicrobiologyepidemiology; Urodelamicrobiology; Communicable Diseases, Emergingmicrobiologyepidemiologyveterinary; Salamandramicrobiology; Europeepidemiology; Chytridiomycota 2024-07-05T08:38:20.866Z LOMv1.0 Author BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Böning;Philipp; FN:Philipp Böning X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4437-4712 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Plewnia;Amadeus; FN:Amadeus Plewnia X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8731-6312 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Veith;Michael; FN:Michael Veith END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Thein;Jürgen; FN:Jürgen Thein END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Tiemann;Laura; FN:Laura Tiemann END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Smith;Steve; FN:Steve Smith X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1318-0018 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Seibold;Sebastian; FN:Sebastian Seibold END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Rödel;Mark-Oliver; FN:Mark-Oliver Rödel END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Preininger;Doris; FN:Doris Preininger END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Ludwig;Gerda; FN:Gerda Ludwig END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Manenti;Raoul; FN:Raoul Manenti X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6071-8194 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Munimanda;Gopikrishna; FN:Gopikrishna Munimanda END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Leroux;Camille; FN:Camille Leroux X-ORCID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4984-3485 END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Grabher;Markus; FN:Markus Grabher END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Griese;Josline; FN:Josline Griese END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Glaser;Florian; FN:Florian Glaser END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Ficetola;Gentile Francesco; FN:Gentile Francesco Ficetola END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Bonato;Lucio; FN:Lucio Bonato END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Bok;Bobby; FN:Bobby Bok END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Bock;Marvin; FN:Marvin Bock END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Lötters;Stefan; FN:Stefan Lötters END:VCARD BEGIN:VCARD VERSION:3.0 N:Barzaghi;Benedetta; FN:Benedetta Barzaghi END:VCARD https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/scheme https://w3id.org/kim/hcrt/text Textdokument Text LOMv1.0 yes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 application/pdf 1650475 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/o:3195 https://phaidra.vetmeduni.ac.at/api/object/o:3195/thumbnail LOMv1.0 discipline