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Young Yosemite toads showed a sharp rise in detectable infection by the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) during their first winter dormant on land, a 2026 field study found. Researchers do not yet know whether the toads caught the fungus during dormancy, carried infections that grew more detectable, or experienced both processes.
What the Yosemite toad study found
Ecologist David Daversa and colleagues surveyed toads from 2021 through 2023 at six meadow complexes in the Tioga Pass region of Yosemite National Park. They collected more than 1,800 samples across three years and examined multiple life stages. For the key comparison, they assessed first-year toads before and after their first terrestrial dormancy, or brumation, which generally lasts from about October to May depending on elevation. The study, published in Functional Ecology on September 23, 2026, found that both Bd prevalence—the share of sampled toads testing positive—and infection intensity increased over that winter period, especially among young toads.
Science News, reporting the study’s figures, says about 23 percent of the young toads tested positive before their first brumation, compared with more than 90 percent after they emerged. Fewer than half of breeding adults tested positive in the comparison reported by the outlet. These are results from the study’s sampled cohorts, sites and seasons—not fixed rates for every Yosemite toad population or year. The comparison also spans different life stages and sampling seasons, so it should not be read as a controlled juvenile-versus-adult risk estimate.
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The study establishes that detected infection increased across the winter period in the surveyed cohorts. It does not establish precisely when or how each infection arose, and researchers did not directly observe Bd activity inside winter burrows. The researchers discuss two possible explanations:
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- Existing infection intensified: A toad may have entered dormancy with a low-level infection that was initially below detection, then carried an infection that increased or became detectable by spring.
- New infection occurred during dormancy: A toad may have acquired Bd during the winter period.
Both could have contributed. Bd’s infective stage is aquatic, and the pathogen is often associated with moist, cool conditions. That makes an increase in infection signals during terrestrial dormancy notable, but it is not proof that transmission happened underground. UCLA’s account quotes first author Daversa describing “major outbreaks of infection” growing and spreading during winter hibernation; the paper’s measured finding is more narrowly an increase in observed prevalence and/or intensity.
Why young toads and winter timing matter
Bd is a chytrid fungus that infects amphibian skin and can cause chytridiomycosis. The winter result points to a seasonal period that disease monitoring may need to include, rather than focusing only on active or aquatic seasons. It also raises a practical question for research: whether infections are acquired during dormancy, become more detectable then, or both.
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The finding is specific to first-year Yosemite toads in six high-elevation meadow complexes over three years. It does not by itself show that the same pattern occurs in every Yosemite toad population, with every Bd strain, or in other amphibian species.
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Yosemite toads are federally listed as threatened. The National Park Service lists disease among several pressures on the species, alongside pollution, drought-related failure of tadpoles to complete metamorphosis, wildfire, reduced winter snowpack, and hotter, drier summers. The study adds detail about one disease-related risk; it does not show that Bd alone explains population declines. The Park Service’s Yosemite toad guidance also asks visitors not to touch toads and to stay outside sensitive, closed or roped-off areas. To report an observation, it gives the Aquatic Wildlife Program number 209-379-1437.
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UCLA reports that the finding has informed a reintroduction program involving Yosemite National Park and the San Francisco Zoo: managers now release captive-reared toads after they have grown for a few years, when they are less vulnerable to overwinter Bd infection. The available account does not report a measured long-term survival or population-growth outcome for that revised release strategy. UCLA’s October 1, 2026 report describes the management response and the study’s implications.
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