Published Date: 2008-11-02 23:50:00
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> White-nose syndrome, bats - USA (07): (Northeast)
Archive Number: 20081102.3448

WHITE-NOSE SYNDROME, BATS - USA (07): (NORTHEAST)
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Date: 31 Oct 2008
Source: National Public Radio (NPR) [edited]
<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96342911>


In the northeastern United States, bats have been dying by the
thousands, struck down by a strange ailment called "white-nose
syndrome." A mysterious, fuzzy white fungus appears on the noses and
skin of afflicted hibernating bats, which then often starve to death.

Alan Hicks, a bat specialist with the New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation, alerted the world to white-nose syndrome
in early 2007 after hearing reports of dead bats in caves near Albany.

Now, researchers have identified the mold they consider a possible
cause of the disease, reporting their findings Thursday [30 Oct 2008]
in the online edition of the journal Science. It is a fragile,
unusual form of _Geomyces_ fungi, which usually live in cold places
such as Antarctica, says David Blehert, lead author of the study. He
is head of diagnostic microbiology at the U.S. Geological Survey's
National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin.

Blehert can't say for certain that the fungus is killing the bats.
"Fungi usually don't kill otherwise healthy animals all on their
own," he explains. He says the infection may make a bat wake up too
often during hibernation, so that it burns up its reserves of fat too
quickly.

Blehert's lab got involved in the research about a year ago, after
Hicks had collected ailing bats with the syndrome and taken them to
Melissa Behr, an animal disease specialist at the New York State
Department of Health. She couldn't figure out what the problem was.

Hicks "would bring a bunch of bats, and we would triage them over the
course of the evening, and I would wonder where the white stuff had
gone," Behr said.

The white material was so fragile that it disappeared at the
slightest touch. So she moved her operation closer to the bats:
inside 2 abandoned mines.

"I got so I could grab a little bat, stabilize his little head, grab
the fungus and put it on a slide," Behr said.

The slides went under a microscope. Behr took photos and sent them to
experts such as Blehert, who said, "The mission of my lab suddenly
became: What is this white stuff?"

No one had ever seen a fungus like this one. But Blehert and his
colleagues retrieved sections of its genetic code and found that it
resembled DNA of other cold-loving fungi. The fungus -- found on the
noses, ears, wings and skin of the infected bats -- flourishes at
temperatures between 41 and 50 F.

Now that scientists have a sample of the fungus's genetic code, they
can test for it in other places. They want to know its source,
because that might provide a clue to how the epidemic started. Right
now, they think something -- maybe a person, maybe an animal --
carried a trace of this fungus into Howes Cave in upstate New York,
30 miles west of Albany.

That's where someone 1st took a picture of a white-nosed bat in
February 2006. The following year, Blehert said, bats were found
dying in 5 caves, all within 10 miles of Howes Cave. "And by last
winter [2007], it was present at 33 sites, out to a 210-km, radius,"
he said.

Hicks, the bat specialist, went looking for evidence of the ailment
again this week, along with reporter Brian Mann of North Country
Public Radio, in an abandoned iron mine near Port Henry, a village in
northeastern New York.

The bats were just settling in for the winter, squealing softly.
Hicks collected a few, dropping them into paper lunch bags after
checking for marks of the epidemic. Good news: There was no sign of
white fuzz.

But the bats are getting wiped out completely in some caves nearby.
"I'll be surprised if some of the sites we visited last year [2007]
aren't at zero, or very near zero, this winter," he whispered to
avoid disturbing the bats.

In 2 sites that scientists have monitored most closely, 78 percent
and 97 percent of the bats have died. Nobody knows where the plague
will end.

--
Communicated by:
ProMED-mail Rapporteur Mary Marshall

[The full Science article, Bat White-Nose Syndrome: An Emerging
Fungal Pathogen? by Blehert DS; Hicks AC; Behr et al., can be found
on the online 30 Oct 2008 publication of Science Online at
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;1163874v1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=geomyces&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT>.

Abstract:
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a condition associated with an
unprecedented bat mortality event in the northeastern United States.
Since the winter of 2006-2007, bat declines exceeding 75 percent have
been observed at surveyed hibernacula. Affected bats often present
with visually striking white fungal growth on their muzzles, ears,
and/or wing membranes. Direct microscopy and culture analyses
demonstrated that the skin of WNS-affected bats is colonized by a
psychrophilic fungus that is phylogenetically related to _Geomyces_
spp. but with a conidial morphology distinct from characterized
members of this genus. This report characterizes the cutaneous fungal
infection associated with WNS.

Infection with _Geomyces_ species has occurred in humans and dogs;
see references below:

1. Recurrent cutaneous Geomyces pannorum infection in three brothers
with ichthyosis. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology,
Volume 58, Issue 5, Pages S112-S113. S. Christen-Zaech, S. Patel, A.
Mancini
<http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0190962207007773>.

2. Systemic infection with Geomyces organisms in a dog with lytic
bone lesions Jay B. Erne, Mark C. Walker, Nicole Strik, A. Rick
Alleman. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association,
February 15, 2007, Vol. 230, No. 4, Pages 537-540.
<http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/pdf/10.2460/javma.230.4.537>.
- Mod.PC]

See Also

White-nose syndrome, bats - USA (04): (Northeast) 20080304.0880
White-nose syndrome, bats - USA (03): 2004 Dorset bat colony gate 20080221.0709
White-nose syndrome, bats - USA (02): (Northeast) 20080220.0687
White-nose syndrome, bats - USA: (Northeast) 20080219.0675
...................................................pc/msp/lm


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