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Disease Monitoring And Biosecurity, David E. Green, Matthew J. Gray, Debra L. Miller Jan 2009

Disease Monitoring And Biosecurity, David E. Green, Matthew J. Gray, Debra L. Miller

UT Extension publication

Understanding and detecting diseases of amphibians has become vitally important in conservation and ecological studies in the twenty-fi rst century. Disease is defi ned as the deviance from normal conditions in an organism. The etiologies (causes) of disease include infectious, toxic, traumatic, metabolic, and neoplastic agents. Thus, monitoring disease in nature can be complex. For amphibians, infectious, parasitic, and toxic etiologies have gained the most notoriety. Amphibian diseases have been linked to declining amphibian populations, are a constant threat to endangered species, and are frequently a hazard in captive breeding programs, translocations, and repatriations. For example, a group of viruses …


The Relationship Of Herpetofaunal Community Composition To An Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Modified Savanna Woodland Of Northern Tanzania, And Bioassays With African Elephants, Nabil A. Nasseri Jan 2009

The Relationship Of Herpetofaunal Community Composition To An Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Modified Savanna Woodland Of Northern Tanzania, And Bioassays With African Elephants, Nabil A. Nasseri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Herpetofauna diversity and richness were compared in areas that varied in the degree of elephant impact on the woody vegetation (Acacia spp.). The study was conducted at Ndarakwai Ranch in northeastern Tanzania. Elephants moving between three National Parks in Kenya and Tanzania visit this property. From August 2007 to March 2008, we erected drift fences and pitfall traps to sample herpetofaunal community and examined species richness and diversity within the damaged areas and in an exclusion plot. I captured 143 individuals comprising 13 species of reptiles in the order Sauria and nine species of anurans. Areas of heavy damage yielded …