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The relationships between Mycoplasma agassizii, a causative agent of upper respiratory disease (URTD), and desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), generally illustrate the complexities of disease dynamics in wild vertebrate populations. In this review, we summarize current understanding of URTD in Mojave desert tortoise populations, we illustrate how inadequate knowledge of tortoise immune systems may obfuscate assessment of disease, and we suggest approaches to future management of URTD in desert tortoise populations. We challenge the view that M. agassizii causes consistent levels of morbidity and/or mortality across the Mojave desert. Instead, URTD may be described more accurately as a context-dependent disease....
Two populations of boreal toads (Bufo boreas) experienced drastic declines in abundance in the late 1990s. Evidence supported the hypothesis of disease (the chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) as the cause of these declines, but other hypotheses had not been evaluated. We used an 11-year capture-recapture data set to evaluate weather and disease as causes of these declines. We developed sets of mathematical models that reflected hypothesized relationships between several weather variables and annual survival rates of adult males in these populations. In addition, models that reflected the possibility that the declines were caused by an introduced fungus were developed. All models were fit to the data...