Data Management Working Group

The Data-Management Working Group works with the North American Bsal Task Force, its partners including the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley) and its online collaborative resource AmphibiaWeb.org, and independent investigators to compile and disseminate Bsal and Bd surveillance results via development of an accessible web portal database with data import, export, analysis, and multi-database linking functions. A web-portal reporting system for Bsal and Bd data provides larger-scale data management capabilities and can address novel multi-scale questions and metadata analyses across individual studies. This data-sharing capability can contribute to analyses that serve to advance understanding of the risk of Bsal or Bd introduction to North America and assess disease risk of these potentially deadly pathogens to native amphibians in North America and elsewhere through aggregating and managing past and current disease sampling data in a common repository.

The goal of the Data Management Working Group is to develop an online Bsal and Bd data management portal to increase sharing of planned or completed surveillance projects and scientific studies to accelerate the pace of learning about these pathogens tied to emerging infectious diseases and foster integrated efforts in research and monitoring across North America and among global communities.

The Data Management Working Group has met its original Goal by developing the Amphibian Disease portal (https://amphibiandisease.org) to comprehensively manage data on the amphibian chytrid fungi Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and B. salamandrivorans (Bsal).

Group Lead: Dede Olson & Michelle Koo