{"id":3193,"date":"2015-03-15T05:39:09","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T05:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=3193"},"modified":"2015-03-15T05:39:09","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T05:39:09","slug":"new-ammunition-in-the-battle-to-save-north-american-bats-from-white-nose-syndrome-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/new-ammunition-in-the-battle-to-save-north-american-bats-from-white-nose-syndrome-2\/","title":{"rendered":"New ammunition in the battle to save North American bats from white-nose syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chris Cornelison<\/a>, Georgia State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been roughly eight years since white-nose syndrome (WNS) was first documented decimating bat populations in upstate New York. The disease is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans<\/em> which colonizes hibernating bats’ muzzles, ears and wings. It\u2019s believed to kill by damaging the wing tissues that normally allow bats to regulate water loss during hibernation. The fungus also repeatedly wakes bats from hibernation, causing them to burn crucial fat reserves, leading to dehydration, emaciation and exposure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nFungus on wing membrane of a little brown bat.<\/span>
\nRyan von Linden\/New York Department of Environmental Conservation<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since WNS arrived in North America, tens of millions of dollars and countless hours have been dedicated to trying to understand this disease, quantify the impact it\u2019s having on bat populations and develop ways to curtail the devastation. Successfully combating the disease has been difficult, but our group has been exploring some new techniques that control the fungus using naturally occurring soil microbes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nScanning electron micrograph of a bat hair colonized by fungus.<\/span>
\nCDC<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A spreading scourge<\/h2>\n

P. destructans<\/em> is a fungus with a long evolutionary lineage in soil. It can generate tremendous amounts of nearly indestructible spores called conidia. These spores, capable of living in conditions where actively growing fungus couldn\u2019t, ensure that P. destructans<\/em> can survive, and even potentially thrive<\/a>, in host-free environments<\/a> \u2013 including cave soils in the heat of the summer or previously decimated hibernacula, the sites where bats hibernate for the winter.<\/p>\n

Every year P. destructans<\/em> has extended its foothold in North America, killing millions of bats and eliminating the tremendous ecosystem services they provide. For instance, bats consume so many agricultural pest insects<\/a> that healthy bat populations allow farmers to use less pesticide on crops.<\/p>\n

Numbers for several hibernating bat species have now declined significantly enough to warrant consideration for protected status under the US Federal Endangered Species Act. The potential listings could have big financial consequences for North American industries including mineral extraction, forestry management and infrastructure development since they would need to avoid disturbing the listed species.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nWhite-nose syndrome on the march.<\/span>
\nUSFWS whitenosesyndrome.org<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Human role in WNS<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s an undercurrent of responsibility in the bat conservation community. Many now believe<\/a> P. destructans<\/em> was introduced into North America by human activities \u2013 in particular, recreational cavers from abroad using gear here that harbored European soil and spores.<\/p>\n

This hypothesis is supported by the tremendous genetic diversity of P. destructans<\/em> samples taken from WNS-positive hibernacula in Europe compared to the very low genetic diversity<\/a> among samples from far-flung regions in the US. The fungus has existed in Europe long enough to develop distinct differences in the versions that live in regions such as Germany versus Spain. Versions isolated in New York, Missouri and Georgia are essentially identical, pointing to a single introduction of the fungus into the US.<\/p>\n

Additionally, European bats manifest WNS symptoms, such as fungal growth on their muzzles and wings, but for currently unknown reasons they don\u2019t die<\/a> from WNS at the high rates their North American counterparts do.<\/p>\n

For bat conservationists, this evidence underscores the role of people in facilitating, and now managing, this ecological disaster.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nCluster of little brown bats with white-nose syndrome<\/span>
\nJonathan Mays, Wildlife Biologist, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How to fight back<\/h2>\n

Developing and implementing control strategies for WNS presents unparalleled challenges in the field of microbial control. The very nature of bats and the hibernacula where they over-winter introduce seemingly insurmountable hurdles to traditional disease management strategies. Harsh conditions and challenging access, along with hibernating bats’ sensitivity to disturbance, cause problems. And researchers must constantly consider the potential for collateral damage from control agents on native flora and fauna.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re looking<\/a> to microbes and the naturally-occurring anti-fungal volatile organic compounds (VOCs) they produce as potential biological control agents of WNS. Here\u2019s the idea: these bacteria and fungi co-evolved in their soil habitat, interacting and competing for resources and space. In this evolutionary jostling for supremacy, microorganisms develop traits that increase the fitness of one by exploiting a \u201cweakness\u201d in its competitor. Our goal is to harness these natural antagonisms \u2013 interactions in which one community member (bacteria) exerts a negative effect on another (fungus) but may not necessarily kill it \u2013 in the fight against WNS.<\/p>\n

Researchers know soils exist that have disease-suppressive properties and are fungistatic \u2013 that is, they keep pathogenic fungi from growing and causing disease, but don\u2019t kill them outright. We hypothesized that these soils could harbor numerous microbial antagonists of P. destructans<\/em>. And in fact that\u2019s just what we found. Bacterially-produced VOCs associated with fungistatic soils<\/a> did act as antagonists<\/a> against P. destructans<\/em>. We also found that a soil-associated bacterium, Rhodococcus rhodochrous<\/em>, can be induced to have tremendous contact-independent antagonism<\/a> towards P. destructans<\/em> in the lab \u2013 it doesn\u2019t need to touch the fungus or the bats in order to prevent or reduce WNS.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nRhodococcus rhodochrous<\/em> strain DAP96253 growing on induction media in the lab.<\/span>
\nKyle Gabriel, Georgia State University<\/span>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now we\u2019re conducting field trials at hibernacula to explore a potential application method for these microbial controls. We\u2019re also investigating the potential of this treatment in areas currently at different points in the disease cycle. One site in Missouri is in its first two years after WNS introduction, others in Kentucky have long-term declines.<\/p>\n

WNS is here to stay. It\u2019s a new part of the North American biosphere and a cave resident that bat species here must adapt to. No matter how powerful the tools we develop to combat this disease, they will never be enough. Ultimately it must be the goal of disease management efforts to curtail the tremendous population losses so that enough bats are able to reproduce to stabilize population numbers. We hope across many generations bats can develop the ability to exist, like their European counterparts, in a WNS world.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chris Cornelison, Georgia State University It\u2019s been roughly eight years since white-nose syndrome (WNS) was first documented decimating bat populations in upstate New York. The disease is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans which colonizes hibernating bats’ muzzles, ears and wings. It\u2019s believed to kill by damaging the wing tissues that normally allow bats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":3194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3195,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3193\/revisions\/3195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}