The Panamanian golden frog began vanishing from its high mountain forests in the late 1990s, prompting a scientific investigation and rescue process that continues today. It was filmed for the last time in the wild in 2006 by the BBC Natural History Unit for the series
Life in Cold Blood by
David Attenborough. Additional factors, such as habitat loss and pollution, may have also played a role. If a cold period occurs, the behavior and immunity of the frogs may change around the same time more spores are released. When these frogs are infected with the fungus, their body temperatures rise to fight off the fungus. However, even if the infection leaves the frogs and body temperatures return to previous normal levels, the infection can re-emerge. Another study found that dry conditions added an average 25 days to the lifespan of infected individuals, while higher temperatures only added 4 days. Not only do these frogs face the threat of the fungal disease, but they also are threatened by human development. As trees are cleared for housing and urbanization, the habitat of
A. zeteki is destroyed. Other threats include encroachment by agriculture, pollution, pet trade, and aquaculture. Two significant efforts to save these frogs have been made. The Amphibian Recovery Conservation Coalition, which started in 2004, exported the endangered amphibians to the US, believing it was a better environment for the endangered species. In 2005, the
Houston Zoo established the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center (EVACC) in Panama, so the endangered frogs could have protected facilities in their native country. EVACC has become a tourist attraction and the populations of the housed species are watched closely by researchers. In early 2006, EVACC exceeded its capacity for housing golden frogs. In order to continue collection efforts, a partnership was formed with the Hotel Campestre in El Valle whereby rooms 28 and 29 of the resort were loaded with terrariums as a stop-gap measure. This was one of several conservation efforts covered in
Elizabeth Kolbert's
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. Over 300 frogs were kept in the so-called "golden frog hotel" and treated to daily cleansing rinses, 24-hour room service, and exotic lunches of specialty crickets until space could be made available in the EVACC.
Experiment Prior to the spread of the
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus into Panamanian golden frog habitat, conservation organizations collected Panamanian golden frogs and placed them in captive survival assurance colonies. The skin of amphibians is host to a diverse resident bacterial community, which acts as a defense mechanism in some amphibians to inhibit pathogens. Researchers characterized the bacterial community from wild and captive Panamanian golden frogs originating from the same population with sequencing to assess how long-term captivity has affected this community. Species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and community structure of the skin microbiota were found to be significantly different between wild and captive Panamanian golden frogs. However, after approximately eight years of living in captivity, the offspring of the original captive Panamanian golden frogs still shared 70% of their microbial community with wild frogs. These results demonstrate that host-associated microbial communities can be significantly altered by captive management, but most of the community composition can be preserved. Reintroduction efforts from captive assurance colonies are unlikely to be successful without the development of methods to control chytridiomycosis in the wild. Researchers have experimented by using
Janthinobacterium lividum to control the skin temperature in hopes the fungus would be kept at bay. It seemed to be a protective treatment at the early stage, but the frogs began to die after two weeks as the
Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is the causative agent of chytridiomycosis. Other methods of focusing on the phenotypic and genetic concordance to do the conservation have been used. Researchers designated
A. varius and
A. zeteki as separate species, but they are poorly sorted based on physical characteristics, and better sorted based on mitochondrial DNA. ==In culture==