Summary of "Disease Killoff" Replies

[Robin Leech]

Taxacomers,

The original question read,
"Does anyone know of a situation whre a disease (in the classical sense of bacteria, fungi, virus, etc.) has caused the extinction of another organism?"

One of my students asked the question of me, and my immediate response was to cite the human animal which has caused the extinction of many other species.  His
response was to rephrase in the classical sense of a disease.

Because the answers are so interesting and informative, I am, in part, summarizing them for others to read.  Below are the replies and responder in the order received:

1.  What about these frogs in Australia, i.e., the gastric breeding frogs. ...
    You need to contact Mike Tyler at Adelaide University.
    (Penny Greenslade)

2.  Pete Daszak at the Inst. of Ecology, U. of Georgia, is the best person
    to check on this.
    Off the top of my head, the first thing that comes to mind is an
    extinction due to a parasite, and it was in a refugial captive-bred
    population, so I guess the extinction can be attributed to all the
    other factors that diminish the species population in the first place ....
    And of course there is the hyperdisease hypothesis for the late
    Pleistocene extinctions....
    http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversity/extinction/Day1/bytes/MacPheePres.html
    (Ian Harrison)

3.  ...if I recall correctly, the small pox virus probably only exists in laboratories
    and there have been no recently recorded cases.  This is, of course, a case 
    of the pathogen becoming extinct, rather than the pathogen killing off it host!
    My guess is that the Red Queen Theory would suggest that selective
    pressures between host and pathogen would cause both the change.
    (Brian Tindall)

4.  The best example I can think of is the Chestnut Blight.  Chestnut used to be
    one of the major tree species in eastern North America, and was very quickly
    killed off.  I think all that survives are a couple of ornamental varieties, but the
    wild variety is extinct.  I believe the blight was a fungus spread by bark beetles.
    (James J. Kruse)

5.  Your restrictions are a bit "iffy", but there is, of course, one species that is
    capable of destroying itself ... and many or all other species.  (One need not
    get into the 'Fermi Paradox' implications on this one...just read the daily news.)
    The "iffy" part of your restriction is that medical science accepts certain mental
    conditions as being 'disease'.  Collective ignorance does not fall into this category.
    One thing seems probable: no other species on this planet intentionally
    developed the ability to make itself go extinct.
    That's not a 'disease...in the classical sense' per se, but there is something
    pathological about it in the social psychological sense.
    (Jim Bass)

6. There was once an agouti (Rodentia: Dasyproctidae) on Gorgona Island some
    50 km off the Pacific coast of Colombia.  The type was collected by members
    of the HMS Pandora in 1850, deposited in the British Museum (Natural History),
    and described by Oldfield Thomas in 1917.  This name was considered a
    synonym of D. punctata by Cabrera (1961).
    Recent research at Gorgona has clearly demonstrated that this agouti has gone
    extinct locally, and is no longer present on the island. ...
    In an article about the mammals of Gorgona (Alberico 1986.  Los mamiferos,
    p. 191-210, IN Isla de Gorgona, von Prahl and Alberico (eds), I attributed this
    extinction to a possible outbreak of disease on the island.  The relatively small
    size of the island (14.4 sq. km) would have held a small population with no 
    isolated subpopulations, so that a plague situation may have been the agent of
    extinction.
    Michael Alberico)

7.  I think there are mechanisms in each organism strategy t avoid killing all the
    host population.  If the host disappears, the parasite or pathogen can disappear
    also.  I remember that there are studies on ladybugs (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae)
    showing that the females look for larvae of this species first, before oviposition
    on aphids.
    (Jean-Michel Maes)


Again, I thank all of you for your contributions.  My student is more than happy, and has been checking all the suggested references.  
Robin Leech