Frog communities undergoing "McDonaldization"

The study of frog data was inspired by seperate research that found that when predatory fish were introduced into artificial ponds, not only did they reduce diversity within each pond, but they also made the species composition of the ponds more similar. In the language of ecology, the predators decreased both alpha diversity, or the diversity within each site, and beta diversity, the diversity among sites.

In the new frog study, the role of the predatory fish was played byBatrachochytrium dendrobatidis, a fungus that lives in water and moist soil that sickens or kills frogs. B. dendrobatidis is called a chytrid fungus from the Greek chytridium, meaning "little pot" because small blisters filled with sperm-like, flagellated zoospores form in the skin of infected frogs.

by Kate Melville