WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

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WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

Postby PYoungbaer » Oct 19, 2011 2:29 pm

White Nose Syndrome will be a dominant topic of research presented at the annual North American Symposium on Bat Research next week in Toronto, Ontario, October 25-29.

NASBR is the single largest meeting of bat researchers in North America. It is dominated by the academic community, and features many student PhD and Masters level papers, as well as lont-time professional researchers in both the academic and wildlife management worlds.

In recent years, WNS has grown to dominate a normally broader agenda of all sorts of bat research. While that broader research continues to be a large part of the conference, in a number of states both wind development and WNS are presenting threats to bats - a double whammy, if you will - and response strategies are often intermingled, important information to know in order to have a more thorough understanding of the environmental, advocacy, and political context in which WNS is taking place.

Abstracts and the program for this year's NASBR conference have just been posted on line:

http://www.nasbr.org/meetings/41_toronto/

Some topics have been presented at other events, but most are new. Those presented at other events are often earlier versions, with more recent research data provided now, and more evolved conclusions. Reading through the abstracts, it's possible to discern emerging research trends. Many of the papers and posters presented work their way into publication in the following year, after appropriate peer review.

For anyone interested in what we are likely to be hearing about in the coming months and years on WNS, I highly recommend perusing these abstracts.
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Re: WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

Postby BrianC » Oct 19, 2011 9:22 pm

Lets see if our neighbors to the north have some real insight backed by real facts, not just what they want the facts to show.
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Re: WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

Postby wyandottecaver » Oct 20, 2011 4:23 pm

Brian,

The location is in Toronto this year, but it is a meeting for folks across North America.

Peter,

thanks for posting!
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Re: WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

Postby BrianC » Oct 20, 2011 8:27 pm

wyandottecaver wrote:Brian,

The location is in Toronto this year, but it is a meeting for folks across North America.

Peter,

thanks for posting!


The northern participants can reveal what they see as fact if they so choose! The USFWS doesn't control them yet!
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Re: WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

Postby BrianC » Oct 20, 2011 8:33 pm

edited because post was in wrong thread, my bad
Last edited by BrianC on Oct 21, 2011 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

Postby JD » Oct 21, 2011 10:46 am

A summary of recent research trends would be very useful. My own quick look at the abstract leads me to suggest a few trends, though there are far more than the few I delineate.

1) In "older " WNS areas the research has shifted to post mortem population studies (New York, Penn., Mass) with an interesting discovery about different genetic structures in E & W Penn. bat populations.

2) Lots of papers on technical tools and bat monitoring - anabat and other studies especially.

3) WNS spread studies, including large overviews but also including narrower studies such as the expected effect on particular species in specific areas. Some look strong but one of the narrow papers used outdated assumptions about the general spread of WNS, disproved by the data in the upper south and midwest over the last few years.

4) Papers on the specific causes of mortality from WNS; especially the two competing theories of winter awakening: moisture theory (they wake up to drink) and groom theory (they wake up to groom irritated skin). These look pretty strong. The Europeans are also exploring these questions from another angle.

5) There is virtually nothing here on whether humans actuallty spread wns though there are some studies (rehashes I think) on the idea caves can be reservoirs for WNS.

A few other thoughts come to mind. Some abstracts are hard to judge beacuse they are just crappy abstracts - like the one that identifies six critical questions about WNS but fails to tell what they are! Beyond wns, as Peter noted, there are a number of interesting papers on another growing threat to bats, wind power. These try to explain why bats are attracted to the generators, what their corpses tell us in general about bat health, and also to look at policy options to reduce this mortality. Finally, there is one glaring weakness for a conference on North American bats - there is very little about Mexico. Last time I looked it was in North America, more that the caribbean islands, which are well represented.

Perhaps someone who knows more about bats than I do can give their take on the research trends, or point out papers which may have particular significance.

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Re: WNS Major Focus of Toronto NASBR Conference

Postby wyandottecaver » Oct 21, 2011 4:33 pm

getting money to do research on human spread will be hard since most of that money is Federal and the Feds have already told researchers humans do spread it...no need for studies :doh:
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