Researchers find link between bats and treatment of human diseases

Dr Chris Cowled hard at work

The Bat Pack, a team of researchers at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong, conduct a wide range of research into bats and bat borne viruses, and their potential effects on the human population, as part of the effort to safeguard Australia from exotic and emerging pests and diseases.

Their paper, published today in the journal Science, provides an insight into the evolution of the bat’s flight, resistance to viruses, and relatively long life.

The Bat Pack, in collaboration with the Beijing Genome Institute, led a team that sequenced the genomes of two bat species - the Black Flying Fox, an Australian mega bat, and the David’s Myotis, a Chinese micro bat.

Once the genomes were sequenced, they compared them to the genomes of other mammals, including humans, to find where the similarities and differences lay.

Chris Cowled, post-doctoral fellow at AAHL says the research may eventually lead to strategies to treat, or even prevent disease in humans.

Bad News for Bats: Deadly Fungus Persists in Caves

A study just published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology shows that the fungus can survive in soil for months, even years, after the bats have departed.

This is not good news for the bat population, says lead author Jeff Lorch, a research associate in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "We have found that caves and mines, which remain cool year-round, can serve as reservoirs for the fungus, so bats entering previously infected sites may contract white-nose syndrome from that environment. This represents an important and adverse transmission route."

"This certainly presents additional challenges," adds David Blehert, a microbiologist at the U.S. Geological Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, who also led the study. "It's important that we have completed this foundational work that further implicates the environment in the ecology of this infectious disease. We can now collectively move forward to address this problem."

Research on stricken bats may help AIDS fight

The remote possibility that an AIDS treatment can arise from the study of white-nose is about the only positive development since the bat disease was first discovered in a cave near Albany, N.Y., in 2008.

Between 5 million and 7 million bats of various species have died from the disease since that year. In Pennsylvania alone, 95 percent of little brown bats have died.

Bats have an ugly reputation as villains in books and movies, but in reality are as important as birds and bees. They pollinate plants, and a single reproductive female consumes her weight in bugs each night. A colony of 150 brown bats can eat enough adult cucumber beetles to prevent the laying of eggs that results in 33 million rootworm larvae in summer, according to a study cited by Bat Conservation International.

Thermal scans of bat faces warn of infected individuals before they show symptoms.

Bats are a major reservoir for the rabies virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

Rabies, typically transmitted in saliva, targets the brain and is almost always fatal in animals and people if left untreated. No current tests detect rabies in live animals—only brain tissue analysis is accurate.

Searching for a way to detect the virus in bats before the animals died, rabies specialist James Ellison and his colleagues at the CDC turned to a captive colony of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). Previous studies had found temperature increases in the noses of rabid raccoons, so the team expected to see similar results with bats.

Bighorn Forest closes caves to protect bats

Managers on the Bighorn National Forest are reminding the public that entering caves on the forest to protect bats from contracting a disease that's killed millions of bats elsewhere in the country.

Regional Forester Dan Jiron recently extended an order that bars entering caves or abandoned mines on national forests and grasslands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas.

The Forest Service says the closure is necessary to protect bat species and habitat from the spread of White-nose Syndrome. Experts estimate that the fungal disease has killed more than 5 million bats in the eastern U.S. and Canada. They say it's continuing to spread west.

Source: Huffington Post

Video: The Battle for Bats: White Nose Syndrome

Closure Decision Upsets Colorado Cavers

U.S. Forest Service officials have extended an emergency order that restricts access to caves and abandoned mines on lands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas. But some Colorado cavers are criticizing the approach taken by the federal agency.

The goal of both groups is to curb the spread of White Nose Syndrome, a deadly disease that’s killed 5.5 million bats in eastern and southern states.

“Western Oklahoma is actually the furthest west that it's been detected, and actually it’s the fungus that causes White Nose Syndrome that has been confirmed,” says USFS Spokesperson Janelle Smith.’

With the disease on Colorado’s doorstep, Smith says the U.S. Forest Service decided to extend an emergency blanket closure order for a third year in a row. The move isn’t popular with some Colorado cavers, who favor targeted closures on U.S. Forest land.

“The caving community doesn’t feel it’s the most effective approach,” says Derek Bristol, chair of the Colorado Cave Survey.

Bristol says closing all 30,000 abandoned mines and hundreds of caves unnecessarily cuts off access for members of his group. Instead, he favors specific closures of caves that bats are known to use for activities such as hibernation and maternity roosts.

“The caving community could be an ally in helping to enforce closure of sensitive sites,” says Bristol. “But since they’ve chosen to go the route of blanket closure orders of all caves they’ve really alienated the caving community by doing that.”

The U.S. Forest Service is working with national groups like Alabama-based National Speleological Society and Kentucky-based Cave Research Foundation. Active members of both groups can get exemptions from the closure orders. Gaining access to the caves will still involve some paperwork.

Meantime, Spokesperson Janelle Smith says other groups and individuals can also apply for exemptions to enter caves. Exactly what that process will look like is unfolding right now.

“We definitely are requiring written permission from the Forest Supervisor to authorize an activity that’s approved. People who get that permission will be able to enter the caves,” she says.

Smith says the agency will focus on approving visits that add to scientific understanding of the disease. Researchers are still trying to figure out how to hault the spread of White Nose Syndrome.

Source: KUNC

Western Maryland wind project faces limits to protect bats, birds

Maryland's first industrial-scale wind energy project would be required under a federal plan issued Monday to slow down its turbines at certain times of the year to reduce the number of endangered bats that might be killed by the long, spinning blades.

Exelon Power, which owns and operates the 28-turbine Criterion wind project in Garrett County, also would have to protect one or more bat caves in other states to make up for any federally protected Indiana bats its turbines might harm.

The tiny, insect-eating Indiana bats, which are found across the eastern United States, have been officially listed since 1967 as in danger of disappearing. Biologists say their number has become even more depleted in the past half-century as a result of human disturbance of their caves, pesticide poisoning and a recent disease, white-nose syndrome.

The draft "habitat conservation plan," prepared for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, marks the first time the federal agency has sought to place conditions on the operation of a commercial wind project in the Northeast to protect rare bats and birds from harm by the towering structures. Restrictions have been placed on a pair of projects in Hawaii and are proposed on a 100-turbine project in Ohio to protect Indiana bats there.

APSU Students Study Bats at Dunbar Cave

Austin Peay State University (APSU) students from the Center of Excellence in Field Biology are conducting important research on bats at Dunbar Cave.

These students used Harp traps, high-frequency microphones, and recording units to search for the bats, whose numbers have decreased in the past few decades.

“When we began our work here, there were very few bats, simply a single bat or two,” Dr. Andrew Barrass, principal investigator for the Bat Project, said. “We have been working since 2005 to try and restore bat populations in the cave. In June 2006, the Dunbar Cave State Natural Area built a new ‘bat friendly’ cave entrance gate, and they were interested in us tracking the progression of bats slowly coming back into the cave.”

Since the project began, the students’ data shows a steady increase in a few bat populations. However, the species known as the ‘Little Brown bat’ has experienced a decline in population due to White Nose Syndrome (WNS), a fungal disease that has killed approximately five to seven million bats in North America in the past four years.

German Wind Farms Can Kill Bats from Near and Far, Research Suggests

Wind turbines may have large-scale negative effects on distant ecosystems. Results of research by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW) demonstrate that bats killed at German wind turbines originate mostly from northeastern Europe.

The study investigated the provenance of those four bat species which are most frequently killed by German wind turbines. Bats are of particular interest because they have a vital and important service function for ecosystems in regulating population densities of pest insects, and because many species migrate during spring and autumn across Europe between their breeding and wintering ranges.

The IZW-researchers analysed the hydrogen stable isotope ratio in the fur keratin of the bats. Hydrogen has two stable isotopes that share similar chemical properties but differ in mass. The distribution of these isotopes varies in a systematic pattern across Europe, with the light isotopes increasing in atmospheric water from south to north. Since bats incorporate the hydrogen stable isotope ratios of their breeding habitat into their fur, they carry an inert isotopic fingerprint on their way to their wintering grounds. Therefore, by determining this isotopic fingerprint, researchers can identify the approximate location where the animals lived during the breeding season for a few months before they died at a wind farm.

The study demonstrated that killed Nathusius pipistrellesoriginated almost exclusively from the Baltic countries, Belarus and Russia. Also, greater noctule bats and Leisler's bats killed by German wind turbines came from northeastern Europe, probably from Scandinavia, Poland and the Baltic countries. In contrast, common pipistrelles most probably lived in nearby local areas around the wind turbines.

Three Texas Tech Students Awarded Fulbright Scholarships

Three Texas Tech students have earned prestigious Fulbright Scholarships from the U.S. State Department.

The students are: Kendra Phelps, a doctoral candidate in biology; Jennifer Zavaleta, a master’s student in the Department of Natural Resources Management; and Lindsay Huffhines a master’s student in the Department of Community, Family and Addiction Services.

Phelps, earning her second Fulbright Scholarship, will be heading to the Philippines to study “Cave Bats in Crisis: Impact of Human Disturbances on Cave-Dependent Bats.”

Zavaleta will be heading to Chile to work at the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity in Santiago along with a watershed management project in Valdivia at the Universidad Austral de Chile.

Huffhines, a Lubbock native, will be going to Iceland to research the effects of sexual abuse on children.

There were a total of 10 Fulbright applicants from Texas Tech this year.

Source: KFYO

Social bats pay a price with new fungal disease

The impact on bat populations of a deadly fungal disease known as white-nose syndrome may depend on how gregarious the bats are during hibernation. Species that hibernate in dense clusters even as their populations get smaller will continue to transmit the disease at a high rate, dooming them to continued decline, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz. One gregarious species has surprised researchers, however, by changing its social behavior.

White-nose syndrome has decimated bat colonies throughout the northeast since it first appeared in New York state in 2006, and it continues to spread in the United States and Canada. In the new study, researchers analyzed population trends in six bat species in the northeast. They found that some bat populations are stabilizing at lower abundances, while others appear headed for extinction. The study, published July 3 in Ecology Letters, examined data from bat surveys between 1979 and 2010, covering a long period of population growth followed by dramatic declines caused by white-nose syndrome.

"All six species were impacted by white-nose syndrome, but we have evidence that the populations of some species are beginning to stabilize, which is really good news," said Kate Langwig, a graduate student at UC Santa Cruz and first author of the paper. "This study gives us an indication of which species face the highest likelihood of extinction, so we can focus management efforts and resources on protecting those species."

The bats hibernate during the winter in caves and abandoned mines, and the number of bats can vary tremendously from one site to another. The fungus that causes white-nose syndrome grows on the exposed skin of hibernating bats, disrupting their hibernation and causing unusual behavior, loss of fat reserves, and death.

This summer is critical for remaining 50 Durham bats

It will be months until scientists know if the few survivors of Bucks County’s largest bat population are still alive and reproducing.

The 10,000 bats that have hibernated in an abandoned iron ore mine in Upper Bucks for generations were wiped out by a disease that has been killing bat colonies across the Northeast at an alarming rate.

When Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife biologist Greg Turner last checked on Upper Bucks’ bats in the spring of 2011, he found near devastation. Only 123 bats had survived, and half of those had fungus around their muzzles; a tell-tale sign they wouldn’t live to see winter.

The Durham bat mine was the second largest known bat habitat in Pennsylvania. Now, the ability of about 50 bats to resist the white nose syndrome, make it through the winter and reproduce this summer will determine the future of bats in Bucks County for generations.

This month, the surviving bats, which hibernate in a gated mine tucked into a Durham hillside, are feeding on insects across the region. Often called the “farmer’s friend,” bats hibernate each winter and spend the spring and summer months consuming hundreds of tons of nighttime insects.

At this time of the year, female bats typically gather in maternity colonies to deliver their newborn pups. In mid-July, the pups will learn how to fly and find food. Bats live 30 to 40 years in the wild, and only have one pup a year.

Greater Noctule Bat First Time Detected In Belgium

Greater Noctule bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus)

During a study of migratoy bats near the Belgian coastline held from april to mid-may,  scientists were able  to record  for the first time sounds of the Greater Noctule Bat in Belgium.

The Greater Noctule bat (Nyctalus lasiopterus) is a rare mammal found in Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. It is the largest and least studied bat in Europe with a wingspan of up to 46 centimeters and is one of the few bat species to feed on passerine birds. Greater Noctule bat is the only bat species to hunt birds on the wings rather than when roosting.

The nearest sighting in Europe was one in Paris in 2009.

With this discovery the total count of different bat species that can be found in Belgium is 22:

(Note: By clicking on the Dutch name you go to the Dutch wikipedia page, for English speakers click on the scientific name between brackets)

• Grote hoefijzerneus  (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) 
• Kleine hoefijzerneus (Rhinolophus hipposideros)
• Gewone baardvleermuis (Myotis mystacinus)
• Brandts vleermuis (Myotis brandtii)
• Watervleermuis (Myotis daubentonii)
• Franjestaart (Myotis nattereri)
• Ingekorven vleermuis (Myotis emarginatus)
• Meervleermuis (Myotis dasycneme)
• Vale vleermuis (Myotis myotis)
• Bechsteins vleermuis (Myotis bechsteinii)
• Bruine grootoorvleermuis (Plecotus auritus)
• Grijze grootoorvleermuis (Plecotus austriacus)
• Gewone dwergvleermuis (Pipistrellus pipistrellus)
• Kleine dwergvleermuis (Pipistrellus pygmaeus)
• Ruige dwergvleermuis (Pipistrellus nathusii)
• Laatvlieger (Eptesicus serotinus)
• Noordse vleermuis (Eptesicus nilssonii)
• Tweekleurige vleermuis (Vespertilio murinus)
• Rosse vleermuis (Nyctalus noctula)
• Bosvleermuis (Nyctalus leisleri)
• Grote rosse vleermuis (Nyctalus lasiopterus)
• Mopsvleermuis (Barbastella barbastellus)

Migratory Bats Use Both Fat Reserves and Food to Fuel Their Strenuous Long-Distance Flights to the South

During autumn, migratory bats use a combination of fat reserves and food to fuel their strenuous long-distance flights to the south. This is reported by researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London."

Songbirds that migrate at night, such as the blackcaps, only use their fat reserves as a fuel to power their migratory flights. This is the only source for energy since they are not capable of hunting insects during the darkness of the night when they migrate. Yet, mammals are not capable of fuelling high metabolic rates exclusively by fat oxidation -- otherwise human obesity would be unknown to modern society.

Therefore, the team led by Christian Voigt investigated which fuels migratory bats use to power their long-distance flights. In autumn, they collected breath from Nathusius' pipistrelles while these bats migrated from the Baltic region to the south. In the bat breath, the researchers measured the carbon stable isotope ratio. When animals oxidize exclusively fatty acids from their body reserves, breath is depleted in carbon-13 (13C). However, if animals oxidize exclusively ingested food, breath is enriched in carbon-13. The researchers found intermediate enrichments of carbon-13 in the breath of pipistrelles, and therefore concluded that bats used a combination of fat and ingested food as their fuel.

It appears as if bats use a mixed-fuel similar to the E10 gasoline recently introduced for cars. In the case of bats, a mixed fuel helps bats to save parts of their fat reserves for hibernation in Southern Europe, for example France. In contrast, migratory birds do not hibernate and therefore have to travel further south, some even to Africa, in order to avoid the harsh European winters. Hibernation in Northern Europe is not an option for migratory bats since they prefer tree roosts in which they would freeze to death during the cold northern winters.

Source: Forschungsverbund Berlin

Journal Reference:
C. C. Voigt, K. Sorgel, J. Suba, O. Keiss, G. Petersons.The insectivorous bat Pipistrellus nathusii uses a mixed-fuel strategy to power autumn migration.Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2012; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.0902

Biologists search for endangered Indiana bats on the Mississippi

A big brown bat is entangled in nets strung up by a bat
research company on Chouteau Island on June 12, 2012.
The bats started flying into the nets shortly after dark.

Like motorcycle officers running radar on a well-traveled road, biologists set traps for unsuspecting bats.

"They're used to their regular routes, and we hope to catch them not really paying attention to the fine detail of our nets," said Janet Tyburec, a biologist for Bat Conservation and Management Inc. of Carlisle, Pa.

Tyburec, 45, and field technician Brenna Long, 27, are helping the Army Corps of Engineers study the Indiana bat, an endangered species.

The bat, which hibernates in caves in the winter and summers in forested areas, makes its home most frequently in the central United States, where white-nose syndrome has become a concern.

The disease has killed more than 6 million bats in four Canadian provinces and 19 U.S. states. First detected in 2006 in New York's Adirondack Mountains, it's unclear how the fungus got to North America. One possibility is that it hitchhiked here on the clothing of tourists.

Nova Scotia bats fall prey to white-nose infection

In this Jan. 27, 2009 file photo, Scott Crocoll holds
a dead bat in an abandoned mine in Rosendale, N.Y

Bat populations in Nova Scotia are dwindling due to the spread of white-nose syndrome.

The fungal infection, just confirmed in this province in spring 2011, has already caused the deaths of about 30 per cent of bats in some sites in the province, says Hugh Broders, a bat researcher at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax.

“It is incredibly sad,” said Broders. “It is only going to get worse.

“It is basically one of the more devastating situations that we have had to deal with in wildlife science.”

Broders, an associate professor and chairman of the university’s biology department, and his research team monitor five bat wintering sites on mainland Nova Scotia, such as caves, where bats hibernate.

“When we did our surveys of these sites in early winter, all were normal,” he said. “When we went back in late winter to do our surveys, we found evidence of the fungus at all of the sites.

“At one of our sites, the numbers were down by 30 per cent and the other site was down by about 25 per cent.”

While the bat counts were normal at the remaining three sites, Broders expects they will also show significant population declines by next year.

Culling bats does not halt rabies, says report

Common vampire bats are a natural
reservoir for the rabies virus

Culling vampire bats in South American nations does not curb the spread of rabies, in fact it could actually be counterproductive, a study suggests.

Until now, it had been assumed that controlling bat numbers would, in turn, control the spread of the rabies virus.

Researchers say rabies is found in most bat populations, but vampire bats - which feed on mammals' blood - are responsible for most infections.

The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

"We found that rabies is there no matter what," said co-author Daniel Streicker, an ecologist at the University of Georgia, US.

"The size of the bat colony didn't predict the proportion of bats that were exposed to the virus.

"That's important because if there is no relationship between bat population density and rabies, then reducing the bat population won't reduce rabies transmission within bats."

Additional Precautions Taken at Maquoketa Caves State Park

Efforts to prevent the spread of a fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in bats will be stepped up after a low level of the fungus was detected on a hibernating big brown bat at Iowa's Maquoketa Caves State Park.

The detection of the fungus came from a swab taken during sampling on the hibernating bats in March. The testing is used to detect DNA that would indicate the presence of the fungus (Geomyces destructans) that causes white-nose syndrome, which has been deadly for bats particularly in the northeastern portions of the United States and Canada.

The testing was done as part of a national study being conducted in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. A total of 15 bats were swabbed at Dancehall Cave with the very low level of the fungus detected on only one bat.

“The level is so low it’s difficult to say what this detection means,” said Daryl Howell of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “It may be at a level low enough that it may not infect the bats at all or it could be just the beginning of an outbreak that we will see in the future.”

Howell said even the small detection of the fungus changes the dynamics at Maquoketa Caves State Park. “We now go from trying to prevent the fungus from getting into the cave to trying to prevent it from getting out."

Councillors defy legal advice over zoning near bat cave

Members of Clare County Council have defied legal advice and their own county manager by allowing an area to be zoned for housing beside an internationally important site for the rare lesser horseshoe bat.

Councillors overwhelmingly voted in favour not to zone a site “open space” that is 120m from Poulnagordon Cave, near the village of Quin. The cave is home to 89 of the protected bats.

A report by the National Parks and Wildlife Service warned councillors not to zone the site for housing, stating that the cave was a special area of conservation and was of international importance due to the numbers of bats it contains.

The lesser horseshoe bat is one of the world’s smallest bats, weighing only five to nine grams with a wingspan of 194mm to 254mm and a body length of 35mm to 45mm. It is afforded legal protection through the EU habitats directive.

Source: Irish Times