TY - JOUR
T1 - Impacts of white-nose syndrome observed during long-term monitoring of a midwestern bat community
AU - Pettit, Joseph L.
AU - O’Keefe, Joy M.
N1 - Funding Information:
Data collection was funded by the Indianapolis Airport Authority. J. Pettit was supported by a grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and assistantships from Indiana State University. We thank many field technicians and graduate students for data collection and B. Walters, D. Sparks, and N. Gikas for data management to 2012. We greatly appreciate helpful comments provided by the Associate Editor and reviewers. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, Allen Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/6
Y1 - 2017/6
N2 - White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging fungal disease suspected to have infected Indiana caves in the winter of 2010-2011. This disease places energetic strains on cave-hibernating bats by forcing them to wake and use energy reserves. It has caused. >5.5 million bat deaths across eastern North America, and may be the driving force for extinction of certain bat species. White-nose syndrome infection can be identified in hibernacula, but it may be difficult to determine whether bats in a particular area are affected if no known hibernacula exist. Thus, our aim was to use long-term monitoring data to examine changes in a summer population away from hibernacula that may be attributable to WNS effects during winter. We used capture data from a long-term bat-monitoring project in central Indiana with data from 10 repeatedly netted sites consistent across all reproductive periods. We modeled capture data by WNS exposure probability to assess changes in relative abundance of common species and reproductive classes as WNS exposure probability increases. We base exposure probability on a cokriging spatial model that interpolated WNS infection from hibernaculum survey data. The little brown bat Myotis lucifugus, the Indiana bat M. sodalis, and the tricolored bat Perimyotis subflavus suffered 12.5-79.6% declines; whereas, the big brown bat Eptesicus fuscus, the eastern red bat Lasiurus borealis, and the evening bat Nycticeius humeralis showed 11.5-50.5% increases. We caught more nonreproductive adult females and postlactating females when WNS exposure probabilities were high, suggesting that WNS is influencing reproductive success of affected species. We conclude that, in Indiana, WNS is causing speciesspecific declines and may have caused the local extinction of M. lucifugus. Furthermore, WNS-affected species appear to be losing pups or forgoing pregnancy. Ongoing long-term monitoring studies, especially those focusing on reproductive success, are needed to measure the ultimate impacts of WNS.
AB - White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging fungal disease suspected to have infected Indiana caves in the winter of 2010-2011. This disease places energetic strains on cave-hibernating bats by forcing them to wake and use energy reserves. It has caused. >5.5 million bat deaths across eastern North America, and may be the driving force for extinction of certain bat species. White-nose syndrome infection can be identified in hibernacula, but it may be difficult to determine whether bats in a particular area are affected if no known hibernacula exist. Thus, our aim was to use long-term monitoring data to examine changes in a summer population away from hibernacula that may be attributable to WNS effects during winter. We used capture data from a long-term bat-monitoring project in central Indiana with data from 10 repeatedly netted sites consistent across all reproductive periods. We modeled capture data by WNS exposure probability to assess changes in relative abundance of common species and reproductive classes as WNS exposure probability increases. We base exposure probability on a cokriging spatial model that interpolated WNS infection from hibernaculum survey data. The little brown bat Myotis lucifugus, the Indiana bat M. sodalis, and the tricolored bat Perimyotis subflavus suffered 12.5-79.6% declines; whereas, the big brown bat Eptesicus fuscus, the eastern red bat Lasiurus borealis, and the evening bat Nycticeius humeralis showed 11.5-50.5% increases. We caught more nonreproductive adult females and postlactating females when WNS exposure probabilities were high, suggesting that WNS is influencing reproductive success of affected species. We conclude that, in Indiana, WNS is causing speciesspecific declines and may have caused the local extinction of M. lucifugus. Furthermore, WNS-affected species appear to be losing pups or forgoing pregnancy. Ongoing long-term monitoring studies, especially those focusing on reproductive success, are needed to measure the ultimate impacts of WNS.
KW - Bats
KW - Capture rates
KW - Disease
KW - Endangered species
KW - Eptesicus fuscus
KW - Mist-netting surveys
KW - Species declines
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U2 - 10.3996/102016-JFWM-077
DO - 10.3996/102016-JFWM-077
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85020387601
SN - 1944-687X
VL - 8
SP - 69
EP - 78
JO - Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management
JF - Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management
IS - 1
ER -