Researchers say a fungal infection affecting Brisbane’s lizards is incredibly concerning, and could pose an existential risk to Australian reptiles.
Nannizziopsis barbatae, also called NB by researchers, was first found in wild populations of water dragons at Roma Street Parklands in 2013, four years after it was initially discovered on a pet lizard.
Over the past decade, the fungus has affected about half of the 400 or so dragons in the park.
It first grows on the skin before slowly killing the animals, according to University of Queensland Associate Professor Celine Frere.
Frere’s PhD student Sam Gallagher-Becker found the lizards were much more likely to be contracting the fungus in the environment than catching it from one another.
“Where you spend your time is more important than who you spend your time with,” said Gallagher-Becker of the sick lizards.
It was unknown whether the fungus was naturally occurring in Australia or imported, he said.
“That’s a bit alarming because we know this pathogen can affect a lot of species, it’s got very variable outcomes across reptile species,” he said.
“We don’t know the distribution of it across the country.”
The pathogen has been detected in soil samples across Brisbane, and the infection has also appeared on lizards in Perth and the south-western New South Wales Town of Dubbo.
Frere said perhaps the scariest aspect of the threat was that unlike bacteria or a virus, fungi like NB can exist in the environment without a host, and can have devastating effects on biodiversity.
“They can take out entire populations because they don’t need the host,” she said.
The fungi can latch on to almost half of Australia’s roughly 1000 reptile species, according to Gallagher-Becker’s study.
“So if we lose them, we lose them – that’s it,” she said, noting a fungus called chytridiomycosis that caused the extinction of more than 100 species of amphibians globally.
Frere, who was part of the team that found NB at Roma Street Parklands in 2013, said the work so far had only focused on Brisbane.
“The problem is we know nothing,” she said.
“The unknown is what really worries us because we may be, as we speak, losing species or populations to extinction, but we have no idea because no one is monitoring it.”
Frere and Gallagher-Becker’s team were continuing their work on the fungus, and encouraged anyone who noticed it affecting lizards in their area to get in touch via the university.
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