Infectious diseases are considered major threats to biodiversity, however strategies to mitigate their impacts in the natural world are scarce and largely unsuccessful. Chytridiomycosis is responsible for the decline of hundreds of amphibian species worldwide, but an effective disease management strategy that could be applied across natural habitats is still lacking. In general amphibian larvae can be easily captured, offering opportunities to ascertain the impact of altering the abundance of hosts, considered to be a key parameter affecting the severity of the disease. Here, we report the results of two experiments to investigate how altering host abundance affects infection intensity in amphibian populations of a montane area of Central Spain suffering from lethal amphibian chytridiomycosis. Our laboratory-based experiment supported the conclusion that varying density had a significant effect on infection intensity when salamander larvae were housed at low densities. Our field experiment showed that reducing the abundance of salamander larvae in the field also had a significant, but weak, impact on infection the following year, but only when removals were extreme. While this suggests adjusting host abundance as a mitigation strategy to reduce infection intensity could be useful, our evidence suggests only heavy culling efforts will succeed, which may run contrary to objectives for conservation.

传染病被认为是对生物多样性的主要威胁，但减轻其对自然世界影响的策略很少，而且基本上不成功。壶菌病是导致全球数百种两栖动物物种减少的原因，但仍然缺乏可应用于自然栖息地的有效疾病管理策略。一般来说，两栖动物幼虫很容易捕获，这为确定改变宿主丰度的影响提供了机会，宿主丰度被认为是影响疾病严重程度的关键参数。在这里，我们报告了两项实验的结果，以调查改变宿主丰度如何影响西班牙中部山区患有致命两栖动物壶菌病的两栖动物种群的感染强度。我们基于实验室的实验支持这样的结论：当蝾螈幼虫饲养在低密度时，不同的密度对感染强度有显着影响。我们的田间实验表明，减少田间蝾螈幼虫的丰度也会对第二年的感染产生显着但微弱的影响，但前提是清除量非常大。虽然这表明调整宿主丰度作为降低感染强度的缓解策略可能是有用的，但我们的证据表明只有大量扑杀工作才能成功，这可能与保护目标背道而驰。