Boston Globe: Wing Damage

[Guest guest]

Even bats have indoor air quality problems. I have contacted the reporter

to see if the fungus has a name and will get back to you if I find out.

Mulvey son

(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/)

Wing damage

The mysterious death of bats has continued this summer, but researchers are

closing in on a cause

By Beth Daley

Globe Staff / July 28, 2008

After a series of provocative discoveries in recent months, scientists

believe bats in the Northeast might be in greater peril from a mysterious

sickness

than originally thought.

Researchers now think that a fuzzy white fungus found on thousands of dead

and dying bats in New England and New York last winter might be the primary

cause of the illness. Scientists have learned that the unidentified fungus seems

to thrive in the cold temperatures found in caves and mines in winter - when

bats are hibernating and most vulnerable.

As worrisome is that many bats continued to die this spring, dashing hopes

that they would recuperate when they emerged from hibernation and resumed

feeding. Hundreds of animals with scarred wings, both dead and alive, were

discovered in Vermont, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire through June. The wing

damage can kill bats and likely was caused by the fungus, researchers say.

Biologists are also growing increasingly concerned that the fungus may be

spreading to tens of thousands of healthy bats as the animals huddle together

while sleeping in their summer roosts.

Humans are not believed to be at risk from the illness, but a large die-off

would likely affect people indirectly. The nocturnal mammals eat enormous

amounts of crop-infesting and human-biting insects, and scientists say they know

so little about bats that their ecological importance may become apparent

only once they disappear.

" We could be at the beginning of something much uglier, " said Cryan, a

bat specialist with the United States Geological Survey in Colorado. He said

researchers are beginning to realize that even if they identify a definite

cause, it may be too late for thousands of bats. " What do we do then? We are

thinking ahead to the spread of it. "

The disease was first seen two winters ago, when thousands of bats died in

four New York caves within seven miles of each other. Many of the bats had an

unusual white fungus on their bodies. By last winter, 25 caves and mines

spread across 135 miles were found to have sick or dying bats in Massachusetts,

Vermont, Connecticut, and New York. Pennsylvania bats may also be affected.

Scientists originally dubbed the sickness " white nose syndrome " because of

the fungus but believed it to be a secondary problem, one that grew on the bats

when they were weakened by something else. That's because fungi are rarely

fatal by themselves.

But a meticulous search for another pathogen using cutting edge technology

has come up short. While researchers say they are not ruling out other causes,

such as something in the environment, a recent discovery that the fungus

grows best in cold temperatures is training their attention back to it.

Bats' immune systems appear to shut down when they are in deep hibernation,

likely to conserve energy and because the parasites, bacteria, and viruses

that would attack them are not normally active in the cold either. If a fungus

exists in the caves that thrives in cold conditions, it could overtake the

bats before their immune system has a chance to respond.

Scientists' hypothesize that the bats could be waking up in the winter from

the fungus - either to jumpstart their immune systems or simply to groom

themselves. Under either scenario, the bats would burn up enormous amounts of

fat

reserves they need to survive the winter. That may be why so many skinny

bats were seen dying on cave floors this past winter or flying into and out of

mines in a futile search for food.

" The attention has narrowed and focused on the fungus, " said Vishnu

Chaturvedi, director of the Mycology Laboratory at the New York State Department

of

Health and part of a team that discovered the cold-loving fungus. He said it

will take time before scientists know for sure what is going on - and longer to

find a solution - but " we're getting a number of clues. "

Some scientists are growing discouraged that they will find the answers in

time. Some caves struck hard by the illness have lost 97 percent of their bat

populations. A bat researcher monitoring a summer roost in New Hampshire

estimates that about 25 percent of his colony is gone, likely from the bat

sickness.

Worries intensified this spring when researchers discovered bats with

inflexible, scarred wings, likely from the fungus. Wings make up more than 75

percent of a bat's surface area and are critical for flying as well as for blood

flow and to enable the animals to exchange heat, gas, and water with the air.

If the wings are too damaged, the animal can die.

" We thought if they made it through the winter they would be good to go, but

that does not appear to be the case, " said Jon Reichard, a Boston University

graduate student who is monitoring two summer bat roosts in Massachusetts and

New Hampshire where he has found hundreds of bats with damaged wings.

Scientists are beginning to study whether bats might be harboring dormant

fungal spores in summer roosts, increasing the risk of transmission.

This is a frightening scenario: Bats migrate as far as 250 miles from their

winter hibernating sites to their summer roosts, where they mix with bats from

other far-off caves and mines. In the fall, they will travel back to their

hibernation sites to mingle and mate with still other bats. If new bats are

infected, the fungus could begin to grow on them as soon as temperatures dip

low enough.

" This condition represents a grave threat to (bats in) the northeastern US, "

said Blehert, director of diagnostic microbiology at the US Geological

Survey National Wildlife Health Center in Wisconsin.

Beth Daley can be reached at _bdaley@..._ (mailto:bdaley@...) .

**************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for

FanHouse Fantasy Football today.

(http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)