By Chelsea Shim

Hundreds of dead bats litter the floors of bat caves across North America. Dismembered wings and legs are scattered throughout the dark chamber. All of the remains have one common characteristic: a mysterious white fluff growing along the corpse, most apparent on the muzzles of these winged rodents.

Little is known about Geomyces Destructans (G. Destructans), the fungus that leads to White Nose Syndrome (WNS) and eventually death for so many bats. The fungus grows in temperatures under 20 C and is typically found on the muzzles, wings and ears of infected bats.

“Imagine having your wings being digested while you sleep. It would be quite disturbing. The bats are disturbed out of their sleep by discomfort. They also experience water loss from their tissues and wake up cold, hungry and thirsty,” says Dr. Greg Thorn, associate biology professor at the University of Western Ontario.

G. Destructans disrupts the normal patterns of hibernation, causing bats to awaken prematurely during their slumber at a time where their main food source, insects, are not as easily accessible. As a result, there has been an increase in deaths from symptoms such as body fat loss and starvation.

An epidemic
The first case of WNS was discovered five years ago in a cave near Albany, NY. Since then it has spread to 16 states in the U.S. and three provinces in Canada: Ontario, New Brunswick and Quebec. To date, there have been more than one million bat deaths associated with WNS in North America.

A 2010 study led by Boston University researchers predicts that the little brown myotis, one of North America’s most common bat species, will be extinct in the northeast in 20 years due to the spread of the fungus among hibernating bats in eastern North America.

As the epidemic continues to spread, there is still little known about the disease as funds to further WNS research is lacking, especially in Canada.

Dr. Brock Fenton, an emeritus professor of the University of Western Ontario, specializes in the behaviour and ecology of bats. He says neither the federal nor provincial governments are making a significant effort to address potential solutions to prevent the spread of WNS.

Fenton says the government has little to no care about the threat facing the bat population and silences the scientists who speak up and challenge the government. And he says that although scientists need the money, they have no credible idea of what they may do to alleviate the situation. “Nobody knows much about the disease. Scientists are literally chasing the unknown. This is why there is a hesitation to provide the funds,” he says.

Six years on
White Nose Syndrome, first identified in North America in 2006, is often referred to as the “poorly understood disease” affecting bats. It has been nearly six years since the disease was identified, and although the cause of G. Destructans fungus has been discovered, no treatments or means of preventing further transmission is known.

Dr Jianping Xu, associate professor of biology at McMaster University and a member of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research, says two factors contribute to this lack of support.

The first factor is limited resources and funding in general for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. The second is that most, if not all, of the funding for infectious diseases has gone to the very few high-profile disease agents (flu, HIV, E. coli). The lesser known ones, especially fungal pathogens, get very little attention from granting panels within the infectious disease research community.

Xu says fungal diseases deserve more attention because they are “very common and cause an increasing proportion of emerging infections to forests, crops, wild animals, and humans.”

Studies have suggested that WNS was introduced to North America from Europe. In European bat caves, hibernating bats have been found with the Geomyces fungus on their bodies, but without associated mortality.

Evidence suggests the spread of Geomyces is likely human-assisted as no bat species migrate between the Europe and North America. Because of this, many bat caves have been closed to humans in order to prevent further spread of the disease.

Other efforts that are currently in place to protect the species, such as lowering the humidity in caves to slow the fungal growth, are desperation measures. Although they may have success in some instances, Thorn calls them impractical as long-term solutions. These measures can provide temporary support for infected populations, but will provide no aid as a long-term solution.

Thorn says a permanent solution can be devised from research but research evolves from funding, which is very scarce for scientists who want to study WNS. “For many of us, this is grant application time and the need for science funding in Canada is high.”

Thorn says in recent years there has been a peak in government support for industrially related research, and a dramatic decline in support for natural sciences. “White Nose Syndrome is not industrially related, so money to support basic fungal ecology and bat research is hard to come by, it has been less and less over the decade,” says Thorn.

A lack of interest in the matter is not an issue. Thorn says the number of biology graduate students and post-doctorate fellows are on the rise, but the funding to support these students is declining. He has noticed there has been a substantial drop in the number of scholarships, grants and awards handed to those who study natural sciences in Canada.

Active research in Canada
In the Willis Bat Lab at the University of Winnipeg, Dr. Craig Willis, associate professor in Biology, focuses his research on current wildlife conservation and management issues, specifically on WNS. Researchers in the Willis Bat Lab test theories involving the body temperature and oxygen consumption of bats under various conditions, and through this, they record the effects these factors have on the survival of infected bats.

Willis and his team captured bats during the fall mating period in the winter of 2010 to study the change in their body conditions. This past summer, the research team published the findings.

The work was conducted in the field at a group of caves about 50 km north of Grand Rapids, Man. Research showed adult females entered hibernation with greater fat reserves and consumed those reserves more slowly than adult males. The findings led to the hypothesis that adult females may be more likely than males to survive WNS.

Funders for the study were NSERC, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Manitoba Research and Innovation Fund and Bat Conservation International. Willis’ lab is only one among the few bat labs in Canada actively researching WNS. Others include the University of Western Ontario, The University of Guelph, and McMaster University.

Dying bats, dying bees
The American Association for the Advancement of Science reports that the loss of bats in North America could lead to agricultural losses estimated at more than $3.7 billion each year. Bats serve as a natural pest control by suppressing the insect population; they feed on nocturnal insects that damage crops and forests. A bat eats up to 60 to 100 per cent of its body weight in insects daily, which lessens the need for expensive and potentially harmful pesticides to protect crops. This also helps to prevent the spread of insect-borne diseases. If the bat population continues to decline, it may result in an increase in diseases carried by mosquitoes, such as West Nile and malaria.

Specific bat species also play an important role in plant pollination. Like the honeybee, another dying species, they eat the nectar and transfer seeds. Over 300 species of fruit, including bananas, mangoes and guavas, depend on bats for pollination.

The Canadian federal government recently announced it would provide $1.19 million in funding to build a new research facility, the National Bee Diagnostic, in Beaverlodge, Alta., in response to the billions of deaths associated with diseases affecting the honeybee population.

The question is: Why the bees and not the bats? It comes down to money. While the economic value of bats is $3.9 billion per year due to pest control, the annual value of the honeybee far outweighs the economic worth of bats. Due to pollination and crop production, the value of honeybees is approximately $20 billion in North America.

Canada falls behind
WNS research in the U.S. is more prominent. Due to the lack of research grants from the Canadian government, Xu says Canada is falling far behind. He says the funding for surveys, monitoring, and resources is mainly provided by American conservation agencies. “There is not enough government support for WNS research. Indeed, there has been little formal government-sponsored funding for basic research on WNS,” says Xu.

Willis agrees. “Millions of dollars have been spent on WNS research in the U.S. For example, the experiments we’ve been doing to understand what the fungus Geomyces Destructans is doing to the physiology of the bats are funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” Willis says.

Although the provincial Ministries of Environment are doing what they can to monitor WNS with the limited support, Willis says it will not be enough unless there is research dollars specifically targeting basic questions about the disease. Willis says what we really need are dedicated federal and provincial research funds to support basic research on this emerging wildlife disease.

Last year, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service provided a total of $1.9 million in grant awards to investigate the cause of WNS and ways to manage it. An October 2011 press release from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stated it anticipates more awards will be announced in February 2012. Up to $1 million may be available for high priority research projects concerning WNS.

Canadian researchers involved in the study of WNS are urging others in the scientific community to be vocal and highlight the need for funding to further research. They urge Canadians to call on the federal government to address WNS before the problem escalates. But as Fenton says, it may not be enough. “Scientists who do speak up are often silenced by the government.”