Abstract
A striking feature of white-nose syndrome, a fungal infection of hibernating bats, is the difference in infection outcome between North America and Europe. Here we show high WNS prevalence both in Europe and on the West Siberian Plain in Asia. Palearctic bat communities tolerate similar fungal loads of Pseudogymnoascus destructans infection as their Nearctic counterparts and histopathology indicates equal focal skin tissue invasiveness pathognomonic for WNS lesions. Fungal load positively correlates with disease intensity and it reaches highest values at intermediate latitudes. Prevalence and fungal load dynamics in Palearctic bats remained persistent and high between 2012 and 2014. Dominant haplotypes of five genes are widespread in North America, Europe and Asia, expanding the source region of white-nose syndrome to non-European hibernacula. Our data provides evidence for both endemicity and tolerance to this persistent virulent fungus in the Palearctic, suggesting that host-pathogen interaction equilibrium has been established.
Highlights
Emerging wildlife infections are a threat to global biodiversity[1], yet the emergence and transmission of such infectious diseases may be a function of ecosystem quality and biodiversity[2]
Bats are vulnerable to infection by the psychrophilic fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans [formerly Geomyces destructans]19, which emerged as a novel pathogen in eastern North America in 200620
Six main lines of evidence support introduction of white-nose syndrome (WNS) into North America: 1) Fungal communities associated with bats and their hibernacula in eastern North America comprise a diverse range of P. destructans allies[22,32]; phylogenetic evaluation, indicates that none of these is closely related to P. destructans[22]
Summary
Emerging wildlife infections are a threat to global biodiversity[1], yet the emergence and transmission of such infectious diseases may be a function of ecosystem quality and biodiversity[2]. The origin of WNS in North America remains unknown and current research focuses on identifying the infectious agent’s source and identifying whether the agent is an introduced pathogen. Six main lines of evidence support introduction of WNS into North America: 1) Fungal communities associated with bats and their hibernacula in eastern North America comprise a diverse range of P. destructans allies[22,32]; phylogenetic evaluation, indicates that none of these is closely related to P. Effective recombination during sexual reproduction results in genetic variability and may be linked with virulence[43] These indirect sources of evidence tend to support the introduced pathogen hypothesis, suggesting WNS may have originated outside of North America[22,23,43,44]. Comparative studies between North America and Europe have been proposed to explain the origin and differential manifestation of the fungal infection[4,40,42,45]
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