How big a role do these ubiquitous animals play in the environment, and what would it mean to forest biodiversity, climate change, and forest food chains to lose whole populations of salamanders?

This second episode of Mongabay Explores’ first season tackles these important questions with Senior Editor Morgan Erickson-Davis, who produced Mongabay's series on this topic for the website in 2019. 

For the next several episodes, this season of the podcast (made possible by our Patreon supporters) will dive into this topic to learn what's known about this issue, now. 

More resources on this topic:

• On the hunt for a silent salamander-killerScientists are racing to stop a pandemic before it starts – but will they find it in time?
• Super-spreaders: How the curious life of a newt could ignite a pandemicTheir susceptibility to Bsal coupled with their mobility mean eastern newts could act as “super-spreaders” of Bsal if the fungus gets to North America.
• Mongabay's whole series on 'Bsal' is here
• United States Bsal Task Force website

Listen to part 1 of this season here: "Mongabay Explores the Great Salamander Pandemic, Part 1: Are we ready?" If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to listen and subscribe. Be sure to check out our sister podcast, the Mongabay Newscast via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts.

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

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