Lips 9807583 Between 1990-97 the PI has observed the sudden and unexplained decline of the riparian anurans at two remote, protected sites in montane Central America. Causes of these declines are unknown, but based on over five years of personal observations, demographic data, and results of autopsies on dead frogs (by D. E. Green), the PI hypothesizes that these two declines may be attributed to two microbial pathogens: a fungus, and a virus. The PI suggests that these two sites were affected by the same agent as that which decimated the amphibians of Monteverde, Costa Rica, and that the sequential disappearance of amphibians at these three sites over the past 10 years is evidence of a highly contagious pathogen moving through the Central American isthmus. The PI will propose to organize a multidisciplinary Rapid Response and Assessment Team that would attempt to jump ahead of this apparent "front" of amphibian mortality. The team would survey the health of both the amphibian fauna and the environment to document the changes in each during a decline. Likely members would include herpetologists, pathologists, toxicologists, and endocrinologists, parasitologists, and epidemiologists. The team would survey these sites in a systematic way to determine the mechanisms of amphibian declines by surveying all life stages, measuring environmental factors thought to cause or contribute to declines, and collecting individuals for full medical diagnostic evaluations. The team would determine the geographic extent of this decline in Central and South America by surveying select upland areas where declines have occurred, and where declines are expected to occur.
