SRS Researcher Receives Grant to Study White-Nose Syndrome

Can winter roosts offer protection for tricolored bats?

by Patty Matteson, SRS Public Affairs  • 

White-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed more than six million bats over the past decade. WNS is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd).

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Tricolored bats hibernate longer than any other bat species in their range. This increases their susceptibility to WNS, because they hibernate deep in caves where conditions are ideal for the Pd fungus. Photo by Pete Pattavina, USFWS.

Studies show that bats eat enough insect pests to save the U.S. corn industry more than $1 billion a year in crop damage and pesticide costs, and more than $3 billion per year to all agricultural production including forests. Federal agencies, universities, private researchers, as well as state agencies and tribes are working together to help save bats affected by WNS.

To help fund the research needed to combat this deadly disease, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced $2.5 million in grants for research of high priority questions about WNS that will improve our ability to manage the disease and conserve affected bats.

U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station research ecologist Susan Loeb and David Jachowski, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at Clemson University, will receive $125,925 to fund the project: “Will use of alternate winter roosts by tricolored bats protect them from white-nose syndrome?”

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Tricolored bats have experienced high mortality rates and naturally reproduce slowly, making population recovery from threats like WNS dangerously slow. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“The goal of this project is to determine whether tricolored bats that use winter roosts other than caves and mines are susceptible to WNS,” Loeb explains. “We will use temperature-sensitive radio-transmitters to track tricolored bats throughout the winter period in an area void of caves and mines to determine their roost sites and hibernation patterns. We want to see the vulnerability of tricolored bats that hibernate in bridges and trees to WNS.”

Their project will be conducted on the Savannah River Site in New Ellenton, South Carolina.

The information gained will allow managers and biologists to determine whether winter roost sites in trees and bridges provide an environment that is not amenable to the growth of Pd and WNS infection. If bats in these areas are not vulnerable to WNS, these sites will represent important refugia for this species.

If the opposite is found to be true and tricolored bats are still vulnerable to WNS, they may decline as quickly as those that roost in caves and mines, resulting in a further threat to their survival. Either way, important information will be gathered that will assist managers in developing conservation and recovery strategies for this once common but now declining species.

Read more about current research on white-nose syndrome.

For more information, contact Susan Loeb at sloeb@fs.fed.us.

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