Monday 28 April 2014

Fungus-Chomping Micro Predators Could Protect Amphibians from Decimating Skin Disease - Scientific American

Fungus-Chomping Micro Predators Could Protect Amphibians from Decimating Skin Disease - Scientific American
In 2012 a team of temperamental donkeys picked their way down the French Pyrenees carrying a payload of voracious protists. Donkeys wouldn't ordinarily be required to ferry single-celled microbes, but these tiny organisms happened to be inhabitants of the several hundred pounds of lake water that the donkeys were also carrying, whether they liked it or not. “It's kind of funny,” says Dirk Schmeller, the scientist whose team hired the donkeys, “because it shows donkeys can help save amphibians.”

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