Devastating disease can cause increased breeding effort and success that improves population resilience

Novel and invasive diseases are a key threat to wildlife and can cause
massive, unprecedented declines and extinctions. The amphibian fungal
disease chytridiomycosis has had devastating global impacts, but after
severe declines some amphibian species can persist and even rebound.
Understanding how these species survive is critical to discovering
management techniques for supporting declining species. Here we explored
the impacts of disease on reproduction in frogs, investigating its effect
on primary and secondary sexual characteristics and breeding effort and
success.  Male frogs are increasing various facets of their
breeding efforts resulting in increased offspring. Infected male frogs
have 1) increased vocal sac coloration, 2) increased sperm quality, and 3)
higher mating success and father more egg masses than uninfected males.
Ongoing high mortality due to chytridiomycosis in these species appears to
be balanced by high reproduction. Management efforts should target the
natural mechanisms (e.g., breeding) that species use to overcome key
threats because they are more likely to succeed and be sustainable.

新兴入侵性疾病是野生动物面临的核心威胁之一，可引发大规模、前所未有的种群衰退乃至灭绝事件。两栖动物真菌病——壶菌病（chytridiomycosis）已在全球范围内造成毁灭性影响，但部分两栖动物种群在经历严重衰退后仍能存续，甚至实现种群反弹。阐明这类物种的存活机制，对于研发支撑衰退种群的保育技术至关重要。本研究探讨了病害对蛙类繁殖的影响，分析其对两性第一、第二性征、繁殖投入与繁殖成功率的作用。研究发现，雄性蛙类会提升繁殖行为的多个维度，进而增加后代产出。受感染的雄性蛙类具备三大特征：1）声囊色彩加深；2）精子质量提升；3）交配成功率更高，且相较于未受感染的雄性个体，能繁育出更多卵块。当前这类蛙类种群因壶菌病持续面临高死亡率，但该死亡压力似乎可通过高强度繁殖得到平衡。保育工作应聚焦于物种用以抵御核心威胁的自然机制（如繁殖策略），这类举措往往更易成功且具备可持续性。