Environmentally persistent pathogens present unique challenges for studies of host-pathogen interactions: Reply to Field (2018).

Christina M Davy,Craig K R Willis,Gudrun Wibbelt,Christopher J Kyle,Michael E Donaldson,Heather Mayberry,Liam P Mcguire,Barry J Saville,Alana Wilcox,Vikram Misra

doi:10.1002/ece3.4035

Abstract

Linked article: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.4034

Highlights

We thank Field (2018) for his comments on Davy et al (2017), “The Other White-Nose Syndrome Transcriptome: tolerant and susceptible hosts respond differently to the pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans”, where we reported the outcomes of experimental exposure of little brown bats, Myotis lucifugus, and greater mouse-eared bats, Myotis myotis, to P. destructans
Field (2018) raises three key points: (1) that the putatively tolerant species in our experiment (M. myotis) did not develop infection, (2) that the reported qPCR results do not confirm the presence of the pathogen at the time of sampling, and (3) that the M. myotis tissue used for RNA sequencing did not contain the pathogen, P. destructans
We proposed experimental designs that could account for individual variation in response to P. destructans or WNS and that could be used to explore the temporal shift in responses of exposed individuals that develop or do not develop clinical disease

Summary

Introduction

We thank Field (2018) for his comments on Davy et al (2017), “The Other White-Nose Syndrome Transcriptome: tolerant and susceptible hosts respond differently to the pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans”, where we reported the outcomes of experimental exposure of little brown bats, Myotis lucifugus, and greater mouse-eared bats, Myotis myotis, to P. destructans. Field (2018) raises three key points: (1) that the putatively tolerant species in our experiment (M. myotis) did not develop infection, (2) that the reported qPCR results do not confirm the presence of the pathogen at the time of sampling, and (3) that the M. myotis tissue used for RNA sequencing did not contain the pathogen, P. destructans. Our results provide an opportunity to quantify response (or lack thereof, in our case) to pathogen exposure, in the absence of disease, in a species (M. myotis) that is sometimes (but not always) resistant or tolerant to P. destructans.

Results

Conclusion