"UK bats may be immune to killer fungus" on BBC Website

[paul]

"UK bats may be immune to killer fungus" article on BBC Website.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23599983.

[John Lovaas]

As of the Madison 2011 National Bat Symposium, the DNA of the fungus hadn't yet been detected in Great Britain, despite the fact that the environmental conditions for the fungus are perfect in GB.

Unless the fungus has since been detected in GB, might a simpler explantion for British bats not having WNS be the fact that the fungus is not present in GB?

[PYoungbaer]

John - the story says the fungus has now been found in the UK.

[John Lovaas]

Ah! Well, given what we know about the fungus(I can't remember the new name of Gd), the simpler explanation might be that the fungus has only recently been introduced to GB, colony infection takes more than one hiberbation cycle to be evident, so it's far too early to say whether British bats are immune?

[peter febb]

Detected in Europe in 2009:

Emerging Infectious Diseases
Volume 16, Number 8—August 2010
White-Nose Syndrome Fungus (Geomyces destructans) in Bats, Europe
Gudrun WibbeltComments to Author , Andreas Kurth, David Hellmann, Manfred Weishaar, Alex Barlow, Michael Veith, Julia Prüger, Tamás Görföl, Lena Grosche, Fabio Bontadina, Ulrich Zöphel, Hans-Peter Seidl, Paul M. Cryan, and David S. Blehert

Abstract

White-nose syndrome is an emerging disease in North America that has caused substantial declines in hibernating bats. A recently identified fungus (Geomyces destructans) causes skin lesions that are characteristic of this disease. Typical signs of this infection were not observed in bats in North America before white-nose syndrome was detected. However, unconfirmed reports from Europe indicated white fungal growth on hibernating bats without associated deaths. To investigate these differences, hibernating bats were sampled in Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary to determine whether G. destructans is present in Europe. Microscopic observations, fungal culture, and genetic analyses of 43 samples from 23 bats indicated that 21 bats of 5 species in 3 countries were colonized by G. destructans. We hypothesize that G. destructans is present throughout Europe and that bats in Europe may be more immunologically or behaviorally resistant to G. destructans than their congeners in North America because they potentially coevolved with the fungus.

http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/8/10-0002_article.htm

[John Lovaas]

Peter F.- there is nothing in the paper you cite that says anything about the presence of the fungus in Great Britain; in fact, the only occurrence of any place name associated with GB is one citation of a 2009 paper titled 'Bats of Great Britain'.

The only conclusion I draw from the paper is that it does not mention British bats or WNS in Great Britain. What conclusion do you draw from the paper?

[peter febb]

You are absolutely correct...I made a small edit to clarify, and correct the date. The UK bats were infected with Penicillium sp.
I'ts quite clear from the analysis that the UK bats did not have WNS.

I just re-located another report that you may have seen:

Dear colleagues,

I am Dr Matti Masing from Estonia. In the late 1970s
I discovered a similar disease in bats hibernating
in limestone tunnels near Tallinn, NW Estonia, NE Europe.
This observation is published in my book Lendlased 1984,
p 81 (in Estonian). In our case the disease (probable fungus),
which I called ?notch disease?, attacked the ears of bats.
It was mostly found in Daubenton's Bats (DB) who spend lot of time
in very humid environment. Much less was it observed in other
Myotis species. It was never found in young bats, but up to 27%
of adult Daubenton's Bats hibernating in some tunnels were affected
by the disease. First the tops of ears became whitish and soft,
later the white tissue disappeared but ?eaten? parts of ears were
visible as deep notches, sometimes half of the ear of even more
was missing. I have a photo of one bat who had deep notches in
both ears. Probably this disease did not kill bats, as there was
no population decline. Bats with notched ears were frequent and
they seemed to live long. But this disease mainly occurred in the
tunnels near Tallinn where up to 27% of adult DB were affected.
Only 3.8% were affected in western Estonia and 0.4% in southeastern
Estonia (Masing 1984).

Matti Masing

Posted by: Matti Masing | February 1, 2008 03:54 PM

Sicista Development Centre, Box 111, Tartu 50002, Estonia. E-mail: sicista@hot.ee

This case does not seem to match the WNS profile.

Immunity issues seem to be key to understanding the situation.
-p