Cold-War Bunkers Enlisted in the Fight Against Cold-Loving Fungus: More on the White-Nose Syndrome Story

Bunkers at Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge. photo credit: USFWS/Steve Agius
Bunkers at Aroostook National Wildlife Refuge. photo credit: USFWS/Steve Agius

A lot has happened since I first wrote about White-Nose Syndrome, the fungal disease that has devastated bat populations in North America. The disease, caused by the cold-loving fungus Geomyces destructans (now renamed Psuedogymnoascus destructans), has been identified in many more places, including most recently confirmed cases in Georgia, South Carolina, Illinois and Missouri in the United States and Prince Edward Island, Canada.

Controlling the spread of this disease is a tremendous problem, because as I indicated in a previous blog post, keeping a hardy fungus from spreading among a population of densely packed small animals in tiny, cold damp areas is not a simple task.

This problem is going to require creative solutions, and scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may have come up with a great idea that answers two questions: How do you control the spread of White-Nose Syndrome and what do you do with 43 unused Air Force bunkers? Continue reading “Cold-War Bunkers Enlisted in the Fight Against Cold-Loving Fungus: More on the White-Nose Syndrome Story”

PCR-Based Diagnosis Wins by a Mile In the White-Nose Syndrome Race

Affected bats in a cave in MA. Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Affected bats in a cave in MA. Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Since the first photograph of bats with white muzzles in Albany, NY, was published, hibernating bat populations in the northeastern U.S. have been devastated by an emerging disease, White-Nose Syndrome (WNS), which continues to spread throughout the United States and now has been found in two Canadian provinces. Bats suffering from WNS are emaciated with little or no body fat and have a characteristic white fungal growth on their wing membranes, ears and muzzles. Instead of hibernating all winter, these bats can be seen active in the snow, when there is virtually no food available.

The infectious agent that responsible for WNS is a new species of the cold-loving fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (formerly, Geomyces destructans) . Currently, WNS is confirmed either through histological analysis or by fungal culture. Both of these techniques have significant limitations. First, they have turnaround times of at least one week. Secondly, they require large amounts of tissue sample from affected bats, more than can be reasonably taken from live bats. Histological analysis is a laborious process that requires highly skilled and trained personnel. Fungal culture can be difficult because bats harbor many bacteria and fungi, and getting a pure culture of a causative organism is not simple. Furthermore, researchers need a quick method for assessing spread of the disease that can provide results quickly.

Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), already used for a host of diagnostic tests in humans, plants and animals, is a logical choice. In a paper published in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation, Lorch and colleagues design and evaluate a PCR-based diagnostic method for WNS. They compare the PCR method to a fungal culture method and the “gold standard” traditional histological analysis. Continue reading “PCR-Based Diagnosis Wins by a Mile In the White-Nose Syndrome Race”

Does a White Nose Belie a Wing Load of Problems? More on WNS

Affected bats in a cave in MA. Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Affected bats in a cave in MA. Image courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

In a recent post, I wrote about White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) in hibernating bats in North America. WNS was first documented on February 2006, by a recreational caver exploring Howes Cave in New York, who photographed a bat with an unusual white growth on its muzzle. In the few years since that picture was snapped, hundreds of thousands of bats in North America have died from White-Nose Syndrome (1,2).

Suffering bats are emaciated with little or no body fat and have a characteristic white fungal growth on their wing membranes, ears and muzzles. Instead of hibernating all winter, these bats can be seen active in the snow, when there is virtually no food available for them (1,2).

The white fungal growth observed on the bats is the result of infection with a cold-loving fungus, which has been identified as a new species within the Geomyces genus, Geomyces destructans  (note added in 2016: this fungus is now called Pseudogymnoascus destructans) (1,3). Analysis of G. destructans samples suggests that the bats have been infected with G. destructans originating from a single source (3).

So far, according to Dr. David Blehert at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) – National Wildlife Health Center, no data indicate that there is any other etiologic agent at play here. G. destructans is the primary suspect. G. destructans has been found on hibernating bats in caves in Germany, France, Hungary, and Switzerland. However the affected bats in Europe are not emaciated, and those affected bats that were tracked after the initial isolation remained healthy (4). As far as scientists can tell, the European and North American isolates of G. destructans are the same.

In a new opinion paper published in BMC Biology, Cryan and colleagues put forth several hypotheses about how infection with G. destructans could cause the mortality observed in the North American bat populations (5). Continue reading “Does a White Nose Belie a Wing Load of Problems? More on WNS”