Abstract
Worldwide, amphibians are threatened by several factors including climate change and pathogens. One emerging fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) has caused die-offs of European salamander populations, representing a conservation concern for hotspots of salamander diversity in the United States of America (U.S.A). While Bsal has not been detected in the U.S.A., previous work has suggested high invasion potential. As species susceptibility to Bsal is temperature dependent, we expect climate change to impact Bsal risk, which has not been explored. Here, we used predicted changes in environmental conditions, species-specific susceptibility estimates, and novel approaches assessing introduction risks to estimate current and future Bsal invasion risk. To generate predictions, we used geospatial data representing introduction risks, species susceptibility, and climatic suitability. Across climatic scenarios, our models predicted greatest overall risk of Bsal emergence in the southeastern and northwestern U.S.A. Bsal climatic suitability was greatest in the northwest, whereas the greatest number of susceptible species was predicted in the southeast. Under future scenarios, we predicted that climatically suitable areas for Bsal will be reduced by 3–14 % under the most extreme climate model.
Published Version
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