This week I thought we would spend a little time on one particular species, the Tazmanian devil, and in particular I thought I’d include some links on its facial tumour disease, the only transmissible tumour.
There is a nice review here on the disease and conservation implications because the incidence of the disease is leading to high mortality, so much so that the species is at risk of extinctionhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534708002462
More from Hamish McCallum herehttp://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0040342 and herehttp://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10393-007-0118-0?LI=true#
You can read more about the disease herehttp://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7076/abs/439549a.html and herehttp://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002483
How can we prevent their extinction? This is one method being trialled, moving them away from the diseasehttp://blog.arkive.org/2012/11/tasmanian-devils-to-get-fresh-start-on-new-island/
Posted By : Judith Lock