Photo credit:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Northeast Region
My neighbor's barn loft was once host to more than 3,000 bats. At dusk they would swarm out in a great river, riding low over the fields to feed, then disperse upward to capture high flying insects. It was always an awesome sight. Bats are such beautiful, nimble fliers. Local conservationists have been monitoring bat populations at this site, along with many others across the state of N.J. When the bats returned to the loft this spring, their population count was about 300. The evening skies are eerily still without them.
Bats are a keystone species. Just as a keystone is the stone at the top of an arch that holds the structure together, so do bats perform a number of essential functions in our environment, with pollination and insect control being the top two. A single bat can consume its weight in insects in just one night. Bats also eat insects that are plant pathogens. It is estimated that millions of dollars' worth of crops are saved from insect damage each year by bats that eat plant pathogenic insects. More than 300 species of fruit including--mangoes, bananas and guavas--depend on bats for pollination.
The culprit devastating U.S. populations is Geomyces destructans or White-nose syndrome (WNS), so named because of the white fungus that grows on infected bats noses and wings. WNS was discovered in 2006 in a cave near Albany, N.Y., that is visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year. The disease has since spread outward from that site, extending northward to Ontario, Canada, and southward to Tennessee. More than a million bats have died in just four years.
Over the course of the winter, healthy bats rouse periodically, during which periods they burn precious calories. For an unknown reason, infected bats, wake up more frequently, hastening the depletion of precious energy stores. This, in turn, leads to starvation. It is still a mystery why infected bats are waking up more frequently. The truth is there is so much about this devastating disease that still remains a complete mystery.
The fungus has recently been discovered in Oklahoma in Cave myotis bats (Myotis velifer), which is the farthest west it has been detected and which is particularly worrisome because bats in Oklahoma share caves with Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis). If Mexican free-tailed bats come in contact with the fungus, they could spread it widely when they migrate, sometimes deep into Mexico. In an article published in PhysOrg., Nina Fascione, executive director of Texas-based Bat Conservation International, speculates that because the fungus thrives in cooler climes, bats in milder areas with shorter winters may find a reprieve, she says that "Everyone's crossing their fingers that there's a climate barrier."
One bit of good news is that even though WNS is present in Europe's bat populations, the bats there do not seem to be dying from it. The speculation is that about 200 years ago there was a major die-off of bats in Europe as a result of WNS. Rebounded bat populations may have acquired an immunity to the disease. One hopes that the bat populations here may be able to build immunity over time and rebound as well.
If you would like to learn more about these exceptional mammals, please visit Bat Conservation International's website.
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