Enhanced Transmission
An important factor to the Ribeiroia ondatrae infections is the exposure to run off nutrients or Eutrophication. Fertilizers have phosphate in it which is also a predictor of larval trematode abundance in amphibians. The herbicide atrazine has proven to weaken amphibian’s immune system which causes frogs to become more prone to R. ondatrae infections which causes predators such as birds to attack the multiple or missing limbed frogs. Since herbicides and pesticides affect the prevalence of R. ondatrae in frogs it increases morality and pathology due to a decrease in survival because of the extra or missing limbs.
Read more about this topic: Ribeiroia Ondatrae
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“While we were thus engaged in the twilight, we heard faintly, from far down the stream, what sounded like two strokes of a woodchopper’s axe, echoing dully through the grim solitude.... When we told Joe of this, he exclaimed, “By George, I’ll bet that was a moose! They make a noise like that.” These sounds affected us strangely, and by their very resemblance to a familiar one, where they probably had so different an origin, enhanced the impression of solitude and wildness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)