Little brown bats used to be one of the most common bats in North America. They could be found hibernating together during the winter months, clinging to the roofs of mines, caves, and caverns.
Today, however, little brown bat populations are in shambles. The culprit? White-nose syndrome. First spotted in a New York cave network in 2006, this highly contagious fungal disease has wiped out between 80 – 98 percent of little brown bats. Some scientists have predicted that the little brown bat could be extinct within a couple decades.
But there’s some good news to report. Kate Langwig, a doctoral student at U-C Santa Cruz who’s researching the effects of the syndrome, says bats are no longer experiencing substantial population declines; in fact, some populations have stabilized or are even growing.
Langwig, the lead author of a new study published in the journal Ecology Letters, explores how little brown bats are coping with white-nose syndrome. Typically, the animals hibernate snugly clusters. Close quarters facilitate the rampant spread of this disease.
Whether by chance or choice, Langwig’s study reports that little brown bats have been hanging further apart – and as a result, the fungus is infecting fewer bats.
Langwig says she and her colleagues are unsure whether healthy bats are making a conscious decision to distance themselves, or whether there are just simply fewer bedfellows as a result of the population declines.
Why should we care? Bats are nature’s pest control. As voracious consumers of insects, bats protect our food supply safely and free-of-charge. With fewer bats, pesticide reliance will increase and food will be more expensive.
Web Links
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01829.x/asset/ele1829.pdf?v=1&t=h58lzefk&s=370ebf9606aeb72114d2f05c55e60c69f7c8d9f3
http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/?p=851
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/can–a–little–brown–bat–outwit–a–fungus/
Photo, taken on February 9, 2011, courtesy of USFWS/Ann Froschauer via Flickr.