Shifts in Assemblage of Foraging Bats at Mammoth Cave National Park following Arrival of White-nose Syndrome

Abstract

The arrival of white-nose syndrome (WNS) to North America in 2006, and the subsequent decline in populations of cave-hibernating bats have potential long-term implications for communities of forest-dwelling bats in affected regions. Severe declines in wintering populations of bats should lead to concomitant shifts in the composition and relative abundance of species during the staging, maternity, and swarming seasons in nearby forested habitats. We examined capture rates of bats collected in mist nets from 2009 to 2016 to evaluate summer patterns in abundance of species pre-and post-arrival of WNS to Mammoth Cave National Park, KY. The data demonstrated a significant change in overall relative abundances. Myotis septentrionalis (Northern Long-eared Myotis) was the most commonly captured species pre-WNS but declined to 18.5% of its original abundance. Nycticeius humeralis (Evening Bat), uncommonly caught in mist nets pre-WNS, demonstrated the largest increase in capture success following arrival of WNS to the Park, followed by Eptesicus fuscus (Big Brown Bat) and Lasiurus borealis (Eastern Red Bat). These data suggest that losses of cave-hibernating bats to WNS may be leading to a restructuring of foraging bat assemblages in nearby forested habitats, with species less affected by WNS potentially exploiting niche space vacated by bats succumbing to infection with WNS.

Long‐term changes in occurrence, relative abundance, and reproductive fitness of bat species in relation to arrival of White‐nose Syndrome in West Virginia, USA

“…Such detailed demographic data are critical to our understanding of how WNS affects individuals and populations that do survive infection, enabling more accurate population viability analyses and informing potential recovery strategies for species already impacted. Unfortunately, long‐term capture data are rarely available for bat species and even fewer are available for assessing bat communities, though pre‐ and post‐WNS capture data have been used to detect declines in Myotis species in New Hampshire (Moosman et al., 2013 ), Indiana (Pettit & O’Keefe, 2017 ), Kentucky (Thalken et al., 2018 ), and the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee (O’Keefe et al., 2019 ). When such data do exist, the numbers are generally too small to assess more than population trends.…”

Landscape-scale distribution of tree roosts of the northern long-eared bat in Mammoth Cave National Park, USA

“…Bat populations in eastern North America are continually being threatened by anthropogenic forces and, now with the onset of the fungal (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) disease white-nose syndrome (WNS), face even greater challenges to survival moving forward (Blehert et al 2009;USFWS 2017). It is presently unclear just how these impacts will interact synergistically to produce population-level effects, or whether declines in bat populations will continue and lead to permanent and lasting shifts in species relative abundance (Moosman et al 2013;Reynolds et al 2016;Thalken et al 2018). Regardless, habitat needs of bats at the landscape scale, especially maternity habitat, should remain a top conservation priority and our analyses indicate that landscape features are important to location of maternity roosts of northern long-eared bats.…”

Development of a multi-year white-nose syndrome mitigation strategy using antifungal volatile organic compounds

“…Additionally, immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome may exacerbate tissue damage following arousal from torpor [ 11 ]. These insults have led to severe population declines for several species, with up to 99% mortality in just a few years following the pathogen’s introduction to some hibernacula [ 2 ], as well as shifts in bat assemblage [ 12 ].…”