The Atlantic cites Longcore’s research in article on origins of killer frog fungus

The Atlantic cited research by Joyce Longcore, a mycologist and associate research professor at the University of Maine, in the article, “The origins of the killer fungus driving frogs to extinction.” In the past few decades, one particular type of the fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd, has killed off so many frogs in Australia, Europe, and the Americas that scientists have warned of an impending mass extinction, according to the article. Longcore, a longtime expert on chytrid fungi, first identified and named Bd in 1999, after studying blue poison-dart frogs that died at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., the article states. “Chytrid fungi have a particular gleam that, after working with, you tend to recognize,” she said.