THE outbreak of disease in a populationcan cause a large number of deaths, ifunchecked. This decreases the geneticdiversity of the species as a whole. Thespecies lacking diversity is unable toadapt to the ever-changing climate andenvironmental conditions. This opensthe door for further disease outbreaks.Gradually the species becomes extinct.
Frog populations are decliningworldwide. But some frogs have found away to save themselves from becomingextinct. A team said outbreak of diseasesin these frog populations is changing theway they behave.
The team from the UK studied thecommon frog species(Rana temporaria).Large-scale deathscaused by theranavirus arecommon in thisspecies. Yet thespecies has survivedan 83 percent decline overthe years. Even its genetic diversity hasbeen maintained.
The team has a hypothesis to explainthis: the mating behaviour of the frogschanged or frogs migrated to joindifferent populations to counter thevirus. The diseased frogs are unable tomate with healthy frogs; even thehealthy ones prefer to mate with thosethat are healthy. Thus matingamongst individuals from differentpopulations preventedimportantgenes of thespecies from gettinglost. Thestudy was reportedin the Augustissue of MolecularEcology