Brian,
Yes, I am mentioned on the study with the other three people, as we conceived and carried out the project, but received no personal funding.
The NSS actually jump-started this project, and paid for the collection of the sediment/soil samples. This was the very first use of the NSS' WNS Rapid Response Funds - a grant of $5,000, of which a little over $1,000 was returned, as many cavers ended up paying for the postage to send the samples to Wisconsin and didn't ask for reimbursement. If the NSS had not paid for the up-front collection materials and process, this would have had to wait an entire year to begin - hence, the project met the goals and intent of the Rapid Response Fund.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funding you cite went to the USGS lab for the processing of the samples. As it turned out, the funding was not sufficient to process and analyze all the samples, due to the complexities of dealing with the
Geomyces destructans fungus (e.g. separating it from the other
Geomyces species). The results of this project (at least those samples processed to date) were published in the March issue of Mycologia. Here's the link as posted on the NSS WNS web page:
http://www.caves.org/WNS/Lindner%20et%20al%20Mycologia,%20March%202011.pdfNow, Dr. Blehert just made a presentation on this work at the NASBR conference in Toronto last month. They have developed a new analysis and are now working to analyze the remainder of the more than 500 samples collected.