Ecology - A declining amphibian conundrum

Worldwide declines in amphibian populations have caused so much concern over the past ten years that a special committee was set up to investigate them. One of the conclusions that this group came to was that there seems to be no single cause that can explain this. But a new study shows that, for frogs and toads in Panama and Australia at least, a pathogen -- the chytrid fungus -- is responsible.