Many threats to biodiversity cannot be eliminated; for example, invasive pathogens may be ubiquitous. Chytridiomycosis is a fungal disease that has spread worldwide, driving at least 90 amphibian species to extinction, and severely affecting hundreds of others^1,2,3,4. Once the disease spreads to a new environment, it is likely to become a permanent part of that ecosystem. To enable coexistence with chytridiomycosis in the field, we devised an intervention that exploits host defences and pathogen vulnerabilities. Here we show that sunlight-heated artificial refugia attract endangered frogs and enable body temperatures high enough to clear infections, and that having recovered in this way, frogs are subsequently resistant to chytridiomycosis even under cool conditions that are optimal for fungal growth. Our results provide a simple, inexpensive and widely applicable strategy to buffer frogs against chytridiomycosis in nature. The refugia are immediately useful for the endangered species we tested and will have broader utility for amphibian species with similar ecologies. Furthermore, our concept could be applied to other wildlife diseases in which differences in host and pathogen physiologies can be exploited. The refugia are made from cheap and readily available materials and therefore could be rapidly adopted by wildlife managers and the public. In summary, habitat protection alone cannot protect species that are affected by invasive diseases, but simple manipulations to microhabitat structure could spell the difference between the extinction and the persistence of endangered amphibians.

对生物多样性的许多威胁无法消除；例如，侵入性病原体可能无处不在。壶菌病是一种在世界范围内传播的真菌疾病，导致至少 90 种两栖动物物种灭绝，并严重影响了数百种其他物种^1,2,3,4 。一旦疾病传播到新的环境，它很可能成为该生态系统的永久组成部分。为了在现场与壶菌病共存，我们设计了一种利用宿主防御和病原体脆弱性的干预措施。在这里，我们表明，阳光加热的人工保护区吸引了濒临灭绝的青蛙，并使体温足够高以清除感染，并且以这种方式恢复后，青蛙即使在最适合真菌生长的凉爽条件下也能抵抗壶菌病。我们的结果提供了一种简单、廉价且广泛适用的策略来缓冲青蛙在自然界中免受壶菌病的影响。该保护区对我们测试的濒危物种立即有用，并且对于具有相似生态的两栖动物物种也将具有更广泛的用途。此外，我们的概念可以应用于其他野生动物疾病，其中可以利用宿主和病原体生理学的差异。该保护区由廉价且容易获得的材料制成，因此可以迅速被野生动物管理者和公众采用。总之，仅靠栖息地保护并不能保护受入侵性疾病影响的物种，但对微栖息地结构的简单操作可能会导致濒危两栖动物的灭绝和持续存在。