Intestinal Nematode Infection Confers a Benefit to a Non-Declining Frog Species, While a Fungal Parasitic Infection...

Emerging infectious disease is a major cause of wildlife decline around the world. Understanding the impacts of disease even in non-declining populations is important for understanding population-level health and resilience to other emerging threats. In this study, we explored the sublethal impacts of the fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, Bd, and a novel intestinal nematode on the non-declining Australian frog, Litoria lesueuri. We collected male animals that were either infected with the fungal parasite, infected with a nematode parasite, infected with both parasites, or uninfected and brought them into the lab and monitored their morphology and fungal pathogen load over a 7-week trial. At the end of the experiment, we dissected the animals, collected the testes, and identified their nematode prevalence and burden. We morphologically and molecularly characterised the intestinal nematode as belonging to the genus Parathelandros within the order Oxyuridae. We found that this Parathelandros sp. infection was beneficial to the adult frogs, where infected animals were larger and had larger forearm width (an important trait for mating) when we accounted for animal size. The exact mechanisms of this improved condition are unknown and require additional research. However, in the Bd-infected animals, we found an overall negative impact of infection, including reduced forearm width and sperm production. Bd infection is prevalent in this species, and there are tangible sublethal impacts of Bd infection, indicating that this species is affected even if mortality due to disease is low.