Two subspecies of bent-winged bats (Miniopterus orianae bassanii and oceanensis) in southern Australia have diverse fungal skin flora but not Pseudogymnoascus destructans

Abstract

Fungi are increasingly being documented as causing disease in a wide range of faunal species, including Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the fungus responsible for white nose syndrome which is having a devastating impact on bats in North America. The population size of the Australian southern bent-winged bat (Miniopterus orianae bassanii), a critically endangered subspecies, has declined over the past 50 years. As part of a larger study to determine whether disease could be a contributing factor to this decline, southern bent-winged bats were tested for the presence of a range of potentially pathogenic fungi: P. destructans, dermatophytes and Histoplasma capsulatum (a potential human pathogen commonly associated with caves inhabited by bats). Results were compared with those obtained for the more common eastern bent-winged bat (M. orianae oceanensis). All bats and their environment were negative for P. destructans. A large number of fungi were found on the skin and fur of bats, most of which were environmental or plant associated, and none of which were likely to be of significant pathogenicity for bats. A 0–19% prevalence of H. capsulatum was detected in the bat populations sampled, but not in the environment, indicative of a low zoonotic risk. Based on the results of this study, fungi are unlikely to be contributing significantly to the population decline of the southern bent-winged bat.

Substrate and spatial variables are major determinants of fungal community in karst caves in Southwest China

“…However, we also found uncommon fungi in this study. For example, Trichosporon , a genus usually associated with bats, bat guano (Holz, Lumsden, Marenda, Browning, & Hufschmid, ; Sugita et al, ) and sediment (Vanderwolf et al, ), was also abundant in water samples in this study. Meanwhile, in the outside environment, this genus was found to be dominant in forest litter and soil (Štursová, Žifčáková, Leigh, Burgess, & Baldrian, ; Voříšková & Baldrian, ); hence, these fungi in caves might be influenced by both animal activities and the forest reservoir outside of caves through water flow.…”

Filamentous fungi occurrence on Molossus molossus (Pallas, 1766) (Chiroptera: Molossidae) present in an Atlantic Forest remnant in Southern Brazil

“…However, if compared only the taxa number reported, studies performed in others regions as Australia, North America and Italy described a higher number than observed in the current study -up to 149 taxa (Voyron et al, 2011;Johnson et al, 2013;Kokurewicz et al, 2016;Holz et al, 2018), which would contradict that tropical areas tend to have higher fungal richness. Therefore, other factors may be related as the sampling in different parts of bat body, carcass collection, number of individuals and environmental samples, as performed in the studies mentioned above.…”

White-nose syndrome restructures bat skin microbiomes

“…Additionally, our findings suggest an influence of environment on the fungal species found on bats, as there were no significant differences in diversity or taxa between bat skin samples and the cave substrates, a pattern typically associated with transient (non-resident) members of a community Vanderwolf, Malloch, & McAlpine, 2015). Indeed, the fungal taxa present on bats appear to be a sample of what is present in the environment, with fungal spores adventitiously landing on bat skin rather than a commensal relationship with the fungi living on the host (Holz, Lumsden, Marenda, Browning, & Hufschmid, 2018). Commensal fungi do occasionally grow on bats (e.g.…”