Tag Archives: bats

Western-most White Nose Syndrome?

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WNS in MOI almost skipped the news that another white nose syndrome (WNS) site has been confirmed in Missouri, because WNS was confirmed in the state last year (covered here), and the new site didn’t seem to represent a significant change.

Leave it to ProMED, however, to point out that the new site, in Onondaga Cave at Onondaga Cave State Park in Crawford County, is the western-most confirmed site of white nose syndrome in bats. So it is significant after all.

ProMED got the news from OzarksFirst.com, here.
I read the press release from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and you can too.

However, the fungus that causes white nose syndrome has been found farther west, in Oklahoma, although it did not cause white nose syndrome in bats there. That might be because of the warmer, shorter winters in Oklahoma or it might be because it was associated with a different species of bat. You can read the Bat Conservation International press release for more info on the situation in Oklahoma. (It’s a PDF.)

Photo: Little brown bat with visible fungus collected at Onondaga Cave. Photo credit: MDC/Shelly Colatskie

WNS Hits Mammoth Cave NP

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MACA_long_cave_MYSE_4Jan2013_forReleaseMammoth Cave in Kentucky used to be one of the largest bat hibernaculums in the world. Indiana bats were particularly fond of the place, and the decline of the cave as a hibernaculum served as a warning to how vulnerable that species is.

On Wednesday, the National Park Service announced that white nose syndrome (WNS) had been confirmed in a northern long-eared bat in Long Cave, a cave in Mammoth Cave National Park that had been closed to visitors for more than 80 years.

“It grieves me to make this announcement,” said Mammoth Cave National Park Superintendent Sarah Craighead in a press release.

Mammoth Cave National Park is home to two federally endangered species of bats and one considered a species of special concern by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. It is also home to two state endangered bat species, two state threatened bat species and one species of special concern to the Kentucky State Nature Preserves Commission, according to the National Park Service.

WNS was first discovered in Kentucky in April 2011. The US Fish and Wildlife Service’s white nose syndrome map shows another detection in Kentucky this season, in Bell County, making these the first reports of WNS this season.

Read the Mammoth Cave National Park press release here.
Read an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal here.
See the USFWS white nose syndrome map here.

Photo: A northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis) from Long Cave in Mammoth Cave National Park showing evidence of white-nose syndrome. By Steven Thomas, used courtesy of the National Park Service

Model Predicts WNS Peak

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little brown bat with white nose syndrome on cave wallA study published recently in Nature Communications models the spread of white nose syndrome in bats, says a press release from the University of Georgia. The model that fits the history of the disease’s dispersal across the United States, predicts a peak in infections in 2015-2016. It also predicts that caves most areas of the United States will have the WNS fungus within 100 years. The model does not include data from Canada.

The model shows that cold winters and the existence of caves are the key factors in where the disease is found.

Read the University of Georgia press release here.
Read the Nature Communications abstract, here. (A subscription or fee is required to access the full article.)

Photo: Little brown bat with white nose syndrome, courtesy of Missouri Dept. of Conservation.

Bat Fungus Sticks Around

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WhiteNoseBat_scientist08Wisconsin researchers have confirmed that Geomyces destructans, the fungus that causes white nose syndrome (WNS) in bats, persists in caves long after all the bats in the cave have died off.

A paper published ahead of print in Applied and Environmental Microbiology also says that because the fungus has been found in all the caves that have had WNS outbreaks, but is not found in caves beyond the region where WNS has been found, the findings support the hypothesis that the fungus is an exotic species in North America.

The paper is particularly bad news in light of recent reports of bats repopulating caves where WNS had struck years ago.

A University of Wisconsin-Madison press release offers one tiny bit of good news. Bats that hibernate in near-freezing conditions seem to fare better than bats hibernating in conditions a few degrees warmer. David Blehert, a microbiologist at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison and a lead researcher on the paper, says that the fungus grows much slower at those low temperatures.

Read the abstract in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. (The full article requires a subscription or fee.)Read the University of Wisconsin press release here.

Photo: A biologist takes samples from a cave in an early attempt to determine the cause of the deadly white-nose syndrome in hibernating bats. Courtesy of  USGS National Wildlife Health Center

Penn. Abandons Bat Petition

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little brown bat with white nose syndrome on cave wallThe article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette seemed a little harsh, claiming that the Pennsylvania Game Commission caved to industry pressure when it abandoned its petition to list bat species that had been affected by white nose syndrome. A tiny bit of digging turned up the PGC press release, which pretty much admits to just that:

“Through this process, we heard from various wildlife organizations and representatives from the timber, oil, coal and gas industries, as well as legislators.  At the present time, it is clear that more discussion, research and coordination need to be done on WNS and the other outside factors that are impacting our bat populations, as well as how we can craft solutions that protect bats without threatening the industries that employ thousands of Pennsylvanians.”

Read the PGC press release here.
Read the article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.
Read a press release from the Center for BioDiversity here.

Photo: little brown bat with white nose syndrome, courtesy of Missouri Dept. of Conservation

Fast(er) WNS Test

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little brown bat with white nose syndrome on cave wallGeomyces destructans, the fungus that causes white nose syndrome in bats, is difficult to identify. The parts that are external to an infected bat, brush off easily, and DNA tests have a hard time discerning G. destructans from other fungi in the genus, which are soil-dwelling organisms that are very common in caves.

The journal Mycologia has published an on-line before print article describing a TaqMan polymerase chain reaction test to identify the fungus’s DNA. The key to not picking up any of the 43 other fungi in the genus (or other closely-related fungi) appears to be focusing on the multicopy intergenic spacer region of the rRNA gene complex.

This innovation should allow diagnostic laboratories to identify G. destructans more quickly.

Read the Mycologia article (requires subscription or fee).

Photo: Little brown bat with white nose syndrome, courtesy of Missouri Dept. of Conservation

Man-Made Bat Cave Aims to Aid WNS Bats

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The bat cave created by The Nature Conservancy chapter in Tennessee can be disinfected after each hibernation season, which may offer some bats a refuge from white nose syndrome (WNS). According to the Leaf Chronicle, the cave cost $300,000, which was raised entirely from private funds.

The article also notes that the cave was built near an existing bat hibernation site.

Lots of details in the Leaf Chronicle article. Read it here.
Read a shorter article in Popular Science, here.
The Nature Conservancy press release is here.
A Nature Conservancy interview with project leader Cory Holliday, here.

What the two reported articles don’t say is that the cave is an answer to a common question about possible solutions for white nose syndrome: Why don’t you just disinfect the cave with an anti-fungal? (Any doubts that this is common? See the comments after the articles.) The short answer is that a cave is a complex ecosystem and fungi play an important role. So far there isn’t a way to kill just the WNS fungus without killing other fungi in the cave.

The artificial cave doesn’t have an ecosystem, so it can be sterilized when the bats leave in the spring. This should prevent healthy bats from be infected from fungi in the cave the following winter, perhaps lessening the virulence in that cave.

It’s pricey, time-consuming and takes some of the wildness away from the bats, but compared to having wildlife rehabilitators raise a “Noah’s ark” population (which has been discussed at times with some seriousness, and even tried with Virginia big-eared bats), it’s likely cheaper, easier and less disruptive.

…And, this just in: An Associated Press story (here in the San Francisco Chronicle) does get into some of these details. Read it here.

Photo: View of the artificial bat cave, with the human entrance below and the bat entrance above. Photo credit: © Cory Holliday, The Nature Conservancy

Turtles, Cougars, and Frogs in the Southwest

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The current issue of Southwestern Naturalist has several articles that may be of interest to biologists outside of the region.

Yellow mud turtles decline in the Midwest. The largest populations of yellow mud turtles in Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri have experienced severe declines. Withdrawal of water from aquifers is the main cause, but the growth of woody plants also plays a role. Read the article, here. (Requires fee or subscription for full article.)
More info on yellow mud turtles from Texas Parks and Wildlife, here.

Cougar habitat in Texas and northern Mexico. Researchers from Sul Ross State University tested a model of current and potential cougar (Puma concolor) in Texas and northern Mexico and found that it worked. Read the article here. (Same for fees or subscription.)

Fungus strikes desert frogs. Chytrid fungus was found in desert oasis frog populations in Baja California Sur. The oases with higher infection rates also had bullfrogs and non-native crayfish. Read the article here.

Also interesting: Western red bats (Lasiurus blossevillii) and Arizona myotis (Myotis occultus) were found on the lower Arizona River after the area was restored. The Arizona myotis had been extirpated from the area, and the western red bat had not be found there previously. Read the article here.