How the USGS Is Fighting White-Nose Syndrome in Bats

U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2018–3020, July 2018. By M. Camille Hopkins and Suzanna C. Soileau.

The disease

Since it was discovered in 2007, white-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed more than six million bats. By mid-2018, 10 of 47 North American bat species had been affected, across 32 states and 5 Canadian provinces. The cold-loving fungus behind it, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, infects the skin of the muzzle, ears and wings of hibernating bats. It eats deep into the vital skin of the wings and fatally disrupts hibernation, through physical damage and the energy bats burn fighting the infection.

Species affected (as of June 1, 2018): Indiana bat (federally endangered), southeastern bat, big brown bat, eastern small-footed bat, little brown bat, tricolored bat, cave bat, gray bat (federally endangered), northern long-eared bat (federally threatened) and Yuma bat. The fungus has also been found on eastern red bats.

USGS science helped identify the fungus, describe the disease's effects and track its rapid spread. Today USGS scientists work nationwide against WNS alongside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service.

Why bats matter

Bats — the only mammals capable of true flight — eat staggering numbers of insects, including crop and forest pests such as the corn earworm moth and emerald ash borer, and disease carriers such as mosquitoes. USGS research suggests they likely save U.S. farmers billions of dollars a year in pest control. In the subtropics and tropics, bats also pollinate and spread the seeds of many important plants.

What the USGS is doing

Early detection and mapping. The National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin, is the reference laboratory for WNS in the United States, analysing one to two thousand samples a year and working with partners to improve lab and field methods for detecting the disease and the fungus. The Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado runs the national WNS website (https://www.whitenosesyndrome.org/), whose maps of the spread help managers target surveillance and control at the leading edge of the disease.

Monitoring bats. The USGS Virginia Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is testing acoustic monitoring tools and methods behind federal and state guidance on bat surveys. The Fort Collins, Upper Midwest (La Crosse, Wisconsin) and Northern Rocky Mountain (Bozeman, Montana) science centres lead the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat), a long-term effort with the Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Department of Defense, Canadian Wildlife Service, Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative, Bat Conservation International and Wildlife Conservation Society Canada.

Developing treatments. Scientists are studying the fungi and bacteria living on bat skin — the microbiome — for natural defences and possible controls.

Yeasts from the wing of a resistant bat species, grown from a skin swab streaked across the dish. National Wildlife Health Center.

The Health Center's experience developing a vaccine for sylvatic plague in prairie dogs is being applied to a possible WNS vaccine. As a proof of concept, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it ran early trials of a bat rabies vaccine, in which more vaccinated bats than unvaccinated ones survived the virus.

Measuring the impact. The Upper Midwest centre and the Health Center are building tools to judge how WNS affects whether bat populations can survive and recover. BatTool (https://github.com/USGS-R/BatTool), a statistical package, helps decision makers see how WNS combined with other stresses, such as wind energy, may affect particular populations. Since the disease appeared, Fort Collins scientists have been studying why some populations are more susceptible than others — work that can show which most need treatment.

Thermal image of Indiana bats huddled for warmth (bright areas). Photo by Paul Cryan.

Guiding management. At the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, scientists help federal and state partners choose actions that keep bats alive and slow the spread, timed to whether an area is free of WNS, newly reached or long affected.

Pooling knowledge. The Fish and Wildlife Service, the USGS and Pennsylvania State University, with the Cranbrook Institute and the Organization for Bat Conservation, held a WNS science synthesis workshop in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, to identify knowledge gaps, management options and new ways to respond.

Sources

• Hopkins, M.C., and Soileau, S.C., 2018, U.S. Geological Survey response to white-nose syndrome in bats: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2018–3020. https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20183020 · https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/fs20183020
• The overview, the list of affected species, the section on why bats matter and the two figures come from the fact sheet's PDF. Its other photographs are credited to photographers and organisations outside the federal government, and are not reproduced here.
• Rewritten in hubnx's own words.