Please excuse my ignorance on WNS as a whole - I certainly don't keep up with news as well as I should - but I was wondering something and hoping you kind folks may have some insight or set me straight.
If WNS is known to cause hibernating bats to awake early and search for food when there is little food around... and the recent string of warmer weather (at least here in the southeast) has caused certain insects to emerge a bit early... could infected, food-seeking individuals be able to feed?
Or am I being too optimistic/naive? Does the fungus physically prevent the bats from eating - are the emerging critters not abundant enough to sustain even a low number of bats - does the fungus have a greater impact on the metabolism of the bats where, even if they had an adequate food source, their bodies would still burn through their nutrient reserves faster than normal anyway - when infected bats awake from hibernation are they even well enough to leave the hibernacula - are other factors I'm not considering coming into play?
I'm really just musing here, but I'd like to see my line of thinking either be corrected or confirmed - could this abnormally warm winter affect G. destructans infected bats favorably?