Summary Report on the NIMBioS Investigative Workshop — Modeling White Nose Syndrome (WNS) in Bats at the Individual, Colony and Regional Levels: Epizootiology and Management
 |
| Photo courtesy Ryan von Linden/ New York Dept. Env. Conservation. |
The first NIMBioS Investigative Workshop on White Nose Syndrome in Bats (WNS) convened on June 30 – July 2, 2009 with 37 participants from all over the United States. The participants were a diverse collection of academicians, primarily theoreticians and biologists, with wildlife managers from NGOs and state and federal governments. The focus of the workshop was to understand and mitigate WNS, which is now recognized as the major threat to bats in North America. The workshop was preceded by a webinar held on June 25 featuring 12 speakers who gave background materials necessary for the workshop. The workshop itself consisted of breakout discussion groups that focused on specialized topics and themes, and plenary discussions that focused on the results and mitigation needs. Breakout discussion sessions included modeling and fungi, modeling and bat ecology relevant to WNS, modeling perspectives and utility to WNS, and modeling and management.
Recognitions and recommendations of the workshop included the following:
- Preliminary work has indicated that the pathogen is an exotic fungus, Geomyces destructans; that the epizootic emanated from a point source in a cave near Albany NY; and that the transmission of the WNS is primarily bat-to-bat.
- The disease is at a critical stage in that it has spread rapidly and has disastrous effects on many species of bats.
- A primary concern for managers is the ability to scientifically predict when and where the fungus will next occur, which at present is a “best guess.”
- Management has a strong need for models that can aid in decisions about mitigation of WNS. Identification of onset time of infectivity of the bats in hibernacula is of special concern for remediation actions.
- Properly formulated models can help organize the material, provide directions for experimental work, provide a synthesis of the data, and project testable conclusions about WNS on several temporal and spatial scales. Modeling should be pursued as important components of the WNS analysis and management.
WNS Plans for the Future
Immediate time scale plans include organizing groups of workshop participants to meet a July 31, 2009 deadline for proposals for a special U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service funding initiative on WNS. At this stage no modeling groups have actively pursued funding for WNS research, but with impetus from this workshop, at least one modeling proposal will address this RFP. Another group that has emerged from the workshop is exploring chemical and veterinary intervention to the spread of the disease. Plans were presented to convene a small group of modelers and biologists to organize the modeling efforts for WNS, hopefully through the auspices of NIMBioS. In August, we plan to present a proposal to NIMBioS that will form a working group on WNS. This group will be a select but diverse group including several participants from the workshop.
Organizers: Thomas G. Hallam and Gary F. McCracken, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Participants: Ballmann, Anne (USGS NWHC); Bayless, Mylea (Bat Conservation International); Blehert, David (NWHC, Madison); Buckles, Elizabeth (Cornell Univ.); Coleman, Jeremy (USFWS); Cryan, Paul (USGS); Federico, Paula (MBI); Frampton, Wyatt (Utah Dept of Agriculture and Food); Frick, Winifred (Boston Univ.); Hicks, Alan (NYDEC); Holliday, Cory (The Nature Conservacy); Ingersoll, Thomas (Univ. California, Berkeley); Jager, Henriette (ORNL); Knudsen, Guy (Univ. Idaho); Kunz, Thomas (Boston Univ.); Matheny, Brandon (UTK); McCracken, Gary (UTK); Nichols, Jeff (ORNL); Nolfi, Daniel (U.S. National Park Service); Pannkuk, Evan (Arkansas State Univ. ), Peirce, James (Univ. Wisconsin, La Crosse); Post, W. Mac (ORNL); Reeder, DeeAnn (Bucknell Univ.); Robbins, Alison (Tufts Univ.); Saito, Emi (USDA/APHIS/VS/Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health); Souza, Marcy (UTCVM); Stiver, Bill (U.S. National Park Service); Turmelle, Amy (Univ. Tennessee/CDC); Vulinec, Kevina (Delaware State Univ.); Weinstein, Richard (UTK); White, LeAnn (UFLVetMed); Youngbaer, Peter (Natl. Speleological Soc.)
More information about the NIMBioS Investigative Workshop on WNS in Bats.
