Bats and white-nose syndrome

Abstract

Since March 2006, white-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed hundreds of thousands of bats in the American northeast and adjacent Canada (1). Most of the mortality has been documented in species that use underground hibernation sites (i.e., caves and mines). Little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus; Fig. 1) have been the most frequent victims. The first evidence of the lethal impact of WNS emerged during annual counts of hibernating bats conducted under the auspices of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The ascomycete Geomyces destructans, a cold-loving (i.e., psychrophilic) fungus, causes the symptoms associated with WNS. In PNAS, Warnecke et al. (2) report that G. destructans isolates from Europe and North America caused WNS in little brown bats. This raises the specter that people (bat workers or cave explorers) are responsible for the introduction of WNS into caves in the United States.