Amphibians acquire resistance to live and dead fungus overcoming fungal immunosuppression.

Emerging fungal pathogens pose a greater threat to biodiversity than any other parasitic group, causing declines of many taxa, including bats, corals, bees, snakes and amphibians. Currently, there is little evidence that wild animals can acquire resistance to these pathogens. Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is a pathogenic fungus implicated in the recent global decline of amphibians. Here we demonstrate that three species of amphibians can acquire behavioural or immunological resistance to B. dendrobatidis. Frogs learned to avoid the fungus after just one B. dendrobatidis exposure and temperature-induced clearance. In subsequent experiments in which B. dendrobatidis avoidance was prevented, the number of previous exposures was a negative predictor of B. dendrobatidis burden on frogs and B. dendrobatidis-induced mortality, and was a positive predictor of lymphocyte abundance and proliferation. These results suggest that amphibians can acquire immunity to B. dendrobatidis that overcomes pathogen-induced immunosuppression and increases their survival. Importantly, exposure to dead fungus induced a similar magnitude of acquired resistance as exposure to live fungus. Exposure of frogs to B. dendrobatidis antigens might offer a practical way to protect pathogen-naive amphibians and facilitate the reintroduction of amphibians to locations in the wild where B. dendrobatidis persists. Moreover, given the conserved nature of vertebrate immune responses to fungi and the fact that many animals are capable of learning to avoid natural enemies, these results offer hope that other wild animal taxa threatened by invasive fungi might be rescued by management approaches based on herd immunity.

Gauging attitudes and behaviours: Meat consumption and potential reduction.

The present study focused on adding to the understanding of meat consumption and potential drivers for its reduction in New Zealand. Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and the recently developed Meat-Attachment Questionnaire (MAQ), this study investigated New Zealand consumers' attitudes, motivations and behaviours in regards to meat consumption. Results derive from a questionnaire sent across New Zealand in March 2017, in which 841 responses were obtained from representative consumer panels. Consumer awareness of the severity of meat's environmental impacts was found to be quite low in comparison to other sustainable food behaviours. Motivations for reduction seem to shift across consumer groups, with different considerations rising and falling in importance depending on current meat consumption habits. Among the TPB components, only attitudes were found to accurately and consistently predict willingness and intentions to reduce personal meat intake, while both attitudes and subjective norms predicted agreement with proposed structural measures that would promote meat reduction and/or plant-based food consumption. In addition, the MAQ was found to provide explanatory power above and beyond that of the TPB components alone and this research supports its use as a tool to further understand meat consumption and potential motivations for reduction. The authors believe these results could be useful for governments or organizations wishing to implement meat reduction strategies, as well as providing a stepping stone for further research inquiry into motivations behind meat consumption and its potential reduction.