Bat killer cause confirmed as fungus (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

White-nose syndrome (WNS), the disease rampaging its way through the bats of North America, is caused by a fungus, scientists have confirmed.

Researchers from a number of US institutions infected healthy bats with the fungus Geomyces destructans, and found they did develop the disease.

The team also showed that the fungus can pass from one bat to another.

Writing in the journal Nature, they say WNS "has the potential to decimate North American bat populations".

So far, the disease has killed more than a million bats in the eastern US and Canada since it was first identified in New York state in 2006.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15460894

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10590.html (public abstract, $$$ for full paper)

[OKIsItJustMe]

1. Infected bats can recover . . . with lots of help

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335592/title/Infected_bats_can_recover_._._._with_lots_of_help

Infected bats can recover . . . with lots of help

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people to nurse more than a tiny number back to health.

By Janet Raloff
Web edition : Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

A http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10590.html">paper published October 26 release in Nature confirms what everyone had come to http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/333675/title/Helping_Bats_Hold_On">assume: that a fungus is responsible for killing vast numbers of North American bats. (Proving the link took some fancy lab work to nail down). But that's not the only bat news. Some authors of the new report also reported data today establishing that with enough coddling, many heavily infected bats can recover.

The rub: Federal scientists pointed out that there really aren’t sufficient resources to save more than a handful of bats this way.

Their marginally encouraging news emerges from a study of 30 little brown bats, all of whom bore visual evidence of a severe white-nose infection. Those new data show that if infected bats are provided warmth, food and water, “they actually can mount a rapid recovery,” notes David Blehert of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisc. He’s an author of the study.

These were bats that had recently — and naturally — emerged from winter hibernation, explains his colleague, wildlife pathologist Carol Meteyer; she also works at the Madison center. The animals had been traveling in and out of caves during late spring and were captured by hand in May and then transported by car to a rehabilitation facility run by Bat World New Jersey.

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