View article

Wildlife disease ecology and conservation focuses on understanding the effects of disease on a species or community, while aiding the development of feasible, appropriate and effective management techniques for threatened species. In the Bd-amphibian disease system, much of the research effort has focused on understanding disease dynamics in susceptible, declining species, and less on understanding the role of disease in sympatric reservoir hosts. Reservoir hosts can have a major impact on disease dynamics in multispecies communities, and need to be considered as part of conservation management aimed at reducing mortality in declining species. Our study, Brannelly et al.(2017), was a collaboration of government and university researchers, and investigated the competence of the common eastern froglet, Crinia signifera, as a reservoir host. The role of C. signifera in contributing to declines in threatened sympatric species has long been suspected, but remained unquantified. We thank all commenters for contributing to the discussion of our paper, Brannelly et al.(2017), and addressing the importance of studying reservoir hosts, for both understanding disease dynamics, and assessing their relevance to conservation management. All three commentaries mentioned that disease dynamics are context specific and that reservoir hosts may vary in importance. Bower (2018) drew attention to the fact that our high elevation study system has low amphibian richness where one species like C. signifera could be key in maintaining and driving disease within the system. However, other amphibian communities may have more complex …