Grassland birds have been experiencing precipitous population declines in recent decades, commensurate with landscape changes to grasslands.
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging disease affecting hibernating bats in eastern North America that causes mass mortality and precipitous population declines in winter hibernacula.
This issue will likely contribute to precipitous population declines as arctic temperatures continue to climb.
Emerging infectious diseases are receiving increasing attention for their role in precipitous population declines and extinctions in natural populations (e.g., [1]).
Urbanization may also contribute to increased disease exposure (Bradley and Altizer 2007) that can cause precipitous population declines (LoGiudice 2003; Riley et al. 2007).
In a paper published recently in Science, Hicks and several co-authors observed that "parallels can be drawn between the threat posed by W.N.S. and that from chytridiomycosis, a lethal fungal skin infection that has recently caused precipitous global amphibian population declines".
"Their population declined".
After the initial precipitous decline, the population remained stable and there were indications of increasing MG resistance in eastern populations [ 15- 17].
However, "precipitous decline in population" does not reflect the precise picture: there are now more Armenians coming into the country than leaving it.
