USGS announces cause for WNS

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USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby Teresa » Oct 26, 2011 1:23 pm

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.as ... s_releases

Off my Twitter feed: They have announced G. destructans causes WNS.

Yawn.
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby DeanWiseman » Oct 26, 2011 1:52 pm

Here is are direct link to the Commentary and the original paper in Nature:

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111026/full/news.2011.613.html#B2

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10590.html


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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby BrianC » Oct 26, 2011 1:58 pm

I would never have believed that this could happen because of the actual spread rates, but there is two questions I have! Where did the bats that were collected come from? Why has it been so difficult for this test to provide this result in the past?
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby BrianC » Oct 26, 2011 2:02 pm



Wait a minute! This states that direct bat to bat contact took place! That would dispute the potential other pathogenic potential. If indeed this occurred, I totally dispute their finding. :yikes:



Blehert and his colleagues collected healthy little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) from Wisconsin, which is well beyond the known range of white-nose syndrome. They infected the bats by direct administration of G. destructans spores to the skin or by contact with infected bats from New York. By the end of the 102-day experiment, the tell-tale white fungus was growing on the muzzles and wings of all of the directly infected Wisconsin bats and 16 of the 18 exposed to sick bats.
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby hewhocaves » Oct 26, 2011 2:03 pm

In other news: Icebergs are primary culprit in "unsinkable" ocean liner accidents. :tonguecheek:

Of course, they can't just say "hey look, we got it all wrong - its bat-to-bat". Paragraph four points out that despite the fact their evidence points away from human vector transit, they don't intend to change their policies. "While our study confirmed that G. destructans is spread bat-to-bat, it is also important to note that virtually all pathogens, especially spore-producing fungi, are spread by multiple routes," Blehert said. "This is the reason that in an effort to further control the spread of WNS, resource management agencies have implemented universal precautions, including limiting human access to sensitive environments occupied by bats, decontaminating equipment and clothing moved between these environments, and restricting the movement of equipment between sites."

Sadly, despite some sources which say the scientific article is free to read, it's not. (its an article in Nature - you can probably get it at your local barnes and nobles). From the abstract, it looks like the experimenters did the following.

1) Cultured some g. destructans off of sick bats.
2) Collected some healthy, clean bats from outside the WNS area.
3). Exposed the clean bats to the g. destructsns directly.

After which the clean bats experienced symptoms consistent with WNS.

From what I can tell from the abstract, the science isn't bad, and its one of those necessary (If obvious) steps. Now future researchers can cite this paper in all sorts of studies on how to kill the fungus. My suggestion? Bore them to death with press release hyperbole.
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby BrianC » Oct 26, 2011 2:09 pm

The debate is fuelled, in part, by the assumption that fungal infections in mammals are most commonly associated with immune system dysfunction


http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature10590.html

So, there is nothing new in this study than we knew before. The first article That started this post gave the impression that only cultured spores were used, not infected bats? (very bad misleading information)
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby hewhocaves » Oct 26, 2011 2:17 pm

BrianC wrote:
The debate is fuelled, in part, by the assumption that fungal infections in mammals are most commonly associated with immune system dysfunction


So, there is nothing new in this study than we knew before. The first article That started this post gave the impression that only cultured spores were used, not infected bats? (very bad misleading information)


Brian,

This is from the abstract - without the actual article, this is as close as I can get to what was done (I will endeavor to get the article).

"Here we demonstrate that exposure of healthy little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) to pure cultures of G. destructans causes WNS."

It states plainly that little brown bats were exposed to the culture. This is better than just bat-to-bat, because they are able to determine what, specifically, on the bat is causing WNS.

The quote you posted, i think, refers to an earlier debate wherein the established line of thinking suggested that a fungus like g. destructans should not be able to affect a new bat unless the new bat was already weakened by something else. This study shows that g. destructans needs no weakened state to be able to affect new bats.
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby self-deleted_user » Oct 26, 2011 2:28 pm

Nature is not free, but Dean and I both have access via our academic institutions which is why it comes up as full text right away for us. I tried posting the full text pdf link but apparently that doesn't work either.

Try this link if you want the full text, I think it falls under "fair use" as it is just one article for educational purposes which is fair use according to what I'm reading.

http://www.amysrabbitranch.com/nature10590.pdf
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby DeanWiseman » Oct 26, 2011 2:29 pm

BrianC wrote:So, there is nothing new in this study than we knew before. The first article That started this post gave the impression that only cultured spores were used, not infected bats? (very bad misleading information)



That's not necessarily true. Think of it this way: Philosophers in Ancient postulated that the Earth was round somewhere around 600 B.C., with significant evidence provided by Aristotle about 300 years later. However, it wasn't until the time of Magellan in the 1500's that definitively PROVED one could physically circumnavigate the Earth; 30 years after Columbus and his 3 boats.

So while we might "know" it's fungal, this is the first direct evidence from highly-controlled laboratory experiments specifically ruling out viral causes. Much higher degree of rigor than studies to this point.


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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby DeanWiseman » Oct 26, 2011 2:31 pm

By the way, if anyone wants the PDF of the article... I will be happy to email it to you directly.


PM me with your email address.


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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby DeanWiseman » Oct 26, 2011 2:33 pm

hewhocaves wrote:The quote you posted, i think, refers to an earlier debate wherein the established line of thinking suggested that a fungus like g. destructans should not be able to affect a new bat unless the new bat was already weakened by something else. This study shows that g. destructans needs no weakened state to be able to affect new bats.


:yeah that:

You don't need to be in a "weakened state" in order to get a fungal infection. Ask any woman, or anyone who has ever had athlete's foot.

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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby Pippin » Oct 26, 2011 2:36 pm

I can't read the entire article but plan to pop by the university library to make a copy. Here's another article that gives a good description of the experiment. I disagree with Brian that this doesn't tell us anything new. It tells us for sure that the bats did get WNS from being in actual physical contact with sick bats, but healthy bats did not get sick from being in a cage next to sick bats with no physical contact. That's a pretty darned good experiment, one that should have been conducted and published years ago...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15460894

This section of the BBC article that I found most interesting:

To determine how the fungus could be transferred from one bat to another, the researchers set up two different experiments.

In one, infected bats could mingle with healthy ones. Nearly 90% of the healthy ones had contracted fungal infection three months on.

In the wild, bats appear to transmit the fungus when they "swarm" in vast groups outside the caves where they will hibernate, literally rubbing shoulders and everything else with their fellows, who may be from a different species or a different cave.

In the other experiment, healthy bats and diseased ones were put in neighbouring cages separated by 1.3cm.

Here, the fungus did not spread, indicating that infectious spores are not airborne.
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby BrianC » Oct 26, 2011 2:38 pm

hewhocaves wrote:
BrianC wrote:
The debate is fuelled, in part, by the assumption that fungal infections in mammals are most commonly associated with immune system dysfunction


So, there is nothing new in this study than we knew before. The first article That started this post gave the impression that only cultured spores were used, not infected bats? (very bad misleading information)


Brian,

This is from the abstract - without the actual article, this is as close as I can get to what was done (I will endeavor to get the article).

"Here we demonstrate that exposure of healthy little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) to pure cultures of G. destructans causes WNS."

It states plainly that little brown bats were exposed to the culture. This is better than just bat-to-bat, because they are able to determine what, specifically, on the bat is causing WNS.

The quote you posted, i think, refers to an earlier debate wherein the established line of thinking suggested that a fungus like g. destructans should not be able to affect a new bat unless the new bat was already weakened by something else. This study shows that g. destructans needs no weakened state to be able to affect new bats.


So did the bats or did the bats not get exposed to infected bats in this study?
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby BrianC » Oct 26, 2011 2:41 pm

Pippin wrote:I can't read the entire article but plan to pop by the university library to make a copy. Here's another article that gives a good description of the experiment. I disagree with Brian that this doesn't tell us anything new. It tells us for sure that the bats did get WNS from being in actual physical contact with sick bats, but healthy bats did not get sick from being in a cage next to sick bats with no physical contact. That's a pretty darned good experiment, one that should have been conducted and published years ago...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15460894

This section of the BBC article that I found most interesting:

To determine how the fungus could be transferred from one bat to another, the researchers set up two different experiments.

In one, infected bats could mingle with healthy ones. Nearly 90% of the healthy ones had contracted fungal infection three months on.

In the wild, bats appear to transmit the fungus when they "swarm" in vast groups outside the caves where they will hibernate, literally rubbing shoulders and everything else with their fellows, who may be from a different species or a different cave.


In the other experiment, healthy bats and diseased ones were put in neighbouring cages separated by 1.3cm.

Here, the fungus did not spread, indicating that infectious spores are not airborne.


This just proves what some of us have speculated all along, that another pathogen or viral weakening is occurring between the bats to allow the fungus to thrive.
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Re: USGS announces cause for WNS

Postby DeanWiseman » Oct 26, 2011 2:43 pm

BrianC wrote: So did the bats or did the bats not get exposed to infected bats in this study?


Directly from the article:

1.)To test the ability of G. destructans to act as a primary pathogen, we
housed healthy little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus; n529) in the
laboratory under hibernation conditions and treated them with
conidia
[aka "spores" -DW] of G. destructans harvested from pure culture. Histological
examination of treated bats that died during the course of the experiment
showed that lesions diagnostic for WNS were apparent by 83
days after treatment. All treated bats were positive for WNS by histology
when the trial was terminated at 102 days after treatment. In
contrast, at the end of the experiment, all bats from the negative
control group (bats treated identically but not exposed to conidia of
G. destructans; n534) were negative for WNS by histology.


2.)We also investigated the potential for WNS to be transmitted from
infected to healthy animals by co-housing hibernating bats naturally
infected with WNS (collected from an affected hibernaculum and
showing clinical signs of the disease; n525) with healthy bats (contact
exposure group; n518). Eighty-nine per cent of bats in the contact
exposure group developed WNS lesions by day 102, demonstrating
for the first time that WNS is transmissible.

3.)To determine if WNS could be spread between bats through the air,
healthy bats (n536) were placed in mesh cages in close proximity to
(separated by 1.3 cm), but not in direct contact with, the positive
control and treated groups. After a period of 102 days, none of the
animals exposed to possible airborne conidia from bats with WNS
showed histopathological evidence of infection. This may be due to
an inability of G. destructans conidia to travel through air at levels
sufficient to establish infections in neighbouring individuals over the
experimental interval or could reflect that conditions within the incubators
(for example, airflow patterns and/or static charges) were not
conducive to airborne transfer of conidia.
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