Amount of soil (about 200 mg) from which Geomyces destructans was cultured. This shows the small amount of soil needed to harbor live fungus and the threat that humans might pose in moving it around from cave to cave on their gear, boots, and clothing.

The fungus that has killed millions of bats in eastern North America since 2006 can survive in the environment for long periods of time, according to new research conducted by the USGS National Wildlife Health Center and collaborating partners at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, and U.S. Forest Service.

What is White Nose Syndrome?

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a disease that has resulted in large-scale population declines for many species of North American bats. It is caused by Geomyces destructans, a fungus that is only capable of growing at cool temperatures; for this reason, the pathogen can only grow on bats when they are hibernating and have a depressed body temperature.

The WNS Causing Fungus Can Survive for Years

Scientists were previously unsure of how the fungus survived during the summer months when a bat’s body temperature is above that which is permissible for the growth of G. destructans. A new study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology sheds light on this mystery, demonstrating that the fungus can survive over the summer in the soil of the caves and mines where bats hibernate.  Researchers at the USGS National Wildlife Health Center used culture techniques to analyze soil samples collected from 14 caves and mines in which bats with white-nose syndrome had been previously observed. The scientists found that G. destructans remained viable in the soil of these sites over the summer when bats were absent.  The findings reveal that caves and mines, which remain cool year-round, can serve as reservoirs for the fungus and that bats entering previously infected sites may contract white-nose syndrome from the environment.

In addition, the researchers found that G. destructans could persist in caves and mines for periods of time much longer than several months. At one site, the fungus was still surviving in soil two years after bats had been excluded from the mine. Similar species of fungi that are not pathogenic to bats appear to play out their entire life cycles in the soil of caves, and it is plausible that G. destructans is capable of doing the same. Once G. destructans arrives at a cave or mine, it is possible the site could remain contaminated indefinitely.

What these Findings Mean for Bats and Humans

This research has important implications for managing WNS and vulnerable bat species by revealing the important role that the environment plays in the disease. For example, the findings suggest that susceptible bats may not be able to effectively re-colonize caves and mines that have been previously contaminated and that the reintroduction of certain bat species to such sites may not be a sound strategy for reestablishing lost populations. Although bats likely play a major role in transporting the fungus, the work additionally highlights the potential for humans entering contaminated caves and mines to come into contact with G. destructans years after bats have disappeared from those sites.

The same study also used molecular techniques to examine the distribution of G. destructans in eastern North America and provided new evidence that the fungus is not native to the continent. These findings support a previous hypothesis that G. destructans may have been introduced from Europe where bats do not appear to die from infection by the fungus.  Using these molecular techniques, the scientists  looked for the fungus in the soil of 55 caves and mines where bats hibernate in the eastern U.S. They found that G. destructans was limited to caves and mines within the range of the disease, but the fungus could not be detected in sites that remained disease-free. In addition, the investigation found that the fungus’ presence correlated with the arrival of white-nose syndrome at sites sampled before and after the disease was observed. These results indicate that a pre-existing form of the fungus was not present prior to the manifestation of disease and argues against G. destructans being native to parts of eastern North America prior to the emergence of white-nose syndrome.

Early Detection of WNS

Amount of soil (about 200 mg) from which Geomyces destructans was cultured. This shows the small amount of soil needed to harbor live fungus and the threat that humans might pose in moving it around from cave to cave on their gear, boots, and clothing.

The molecular techniques used in the study represent the first successful attempt to use high-throughput screening, a method to rapidly test large numbers of environmental samples, for G. destructans and accurately distinguish it from the large number of similar fungi that occur in caves and mines. Such a technique has great utility in monitoring sites for the fungus and could serve as a means by which the disease agent can be detected prior to the disease itself being observed. This could allow for proactive management strategies that may reduce the number of bats lost and prevent or slow the spread of the fungus across the landscape.

USGS scientist Thierry Work takes a sample from diseased coral at Tunnels Reef on the north shore of Kauai, Hawaii

A coral disease epidemic is killing unusually large numbers of coral on the north shore of the Hawaiian island, Kauai, and USGS scientists, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, are investigating the cause.

Coral reefs cover less than 0.5 percent of the earth’s surface, but provide habitat for an estimated 25 percent of all marine species. Second only to tropical rainforests in size and complexity, more than one million species of plants and animals may be interlinked with coral reefs.

“Coral reefs are important to Hawaii’s underwater environments and the financial well-being of its tourism industry,” said USGS scientist Thierry Work. “Like it or not, ecosystem health is closely intertwined with human and animal health.”

What is Causing the Disease?

Scientists have collected coral samples from the diseased areas, which are referred to as lesions, and examined them in the laboratory. The lesions are closely associated with a mysterious cyanobacterial infection. Cyanobacteria, a type of blue-green algae, often cause visible blooms in freshwater lakes; however, many cyanobacteria are also present in the ocean. Some species of cyanobacteria produce toxins that can sicken wildlife, domestic animals, and humans. The effects of this current outbreak appear limited to corals.

This coral disease outbreak is the first instance where a cyanobacterial disease has been documented in Hawaii on such a large scale. Scientists are trying to figure out what is promoting the outbreak. An unusually large amount of sediment is present on two affected reefs, and this is known to adversely affect corals in other areas.  However, what role sediment or other land based pollution has in driving this disease remains unclear.

Cyanobacteria-affected coral taken at Makua, Kauai on August 5, 2012. The green dots indicate macroalgae; the red dots indicate cyanobacteria-associated tissue loss; and the blue dots indicate live coral.

Why Study this Outbreak? You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure and You Cannot Measure What You Don’t Know

Wildlife disease outbreaks are indicators that something is awry in the environment. Understanding causes of disease and what drives those causes is important because this information helps management agencies make informed decisions to prevent further spread of the disease or minimize impact of disease.  Like many other places, coral reefs in Hawaii are adversely impacted by global climate change, land-based pollution, overfishing, and disease. Understanding the role and causes of disease in corals and their prevention may contribute to prevention of additional outbreaks and aid in their recovery.

Coral Reefs are Important

Coral reefs are not only essential for other marine species, they are also economically important. Reefs shelter and provide nursery grounds for many commercially and culturally important species of fish and invertebrates, they protect the islands’ harbors, beaches, and shorelines from erosion and wave damage by storms, and they are vital to the Pacific’s marine tourism industry. Globally, these diverse ecosystems may provide valuable goods and services worth about $375 billion each year to communities around the world.

Coral reefs are sensitive indicators of the health of marine environments. Yet coral reefs are in decline in many parts of the world. It is estimated that 30 percent will be destroyed or seriously degraded in the next 10 years. Disease has played a major role in the decline of coral reef cover in certain parts of the globe such as the Caribbean. In many cases, the causes of mortalities of marine invertebrates are unknown. USGS is collaborating with state, territorial, and other federal agencies to develop tools to assess health of corals and other marine organisms and to determine causes of coral mortality to preserve this unique and valuable natural resource.

For more information on coral disease, see this publication:

Dr. Greta Aeby (left), a coral expert with the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology at the University of Hawai‘i, and Dr. Thierry Work, wildlife disease specialist for the USGS National Wildlife Health Center exit the water at ‘Anini after more than six hours of documenting and photographing diseased rice corals.

Work, T.M., Russell, Robin, & Aeby, G.S. (2012). Tissue loss (white syndrome) in the coral
Montipora capitata is a dynamic disease with multiple host responses and potential causes. Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 279(1746), 4334-4341.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1746/4334.long

Bat with white-nose syndrome.

As Halloween approaches and bats prepare for winter hibernation, these iconic animals of the night sky face an uncertain future because of white-nose syndrome (WNS). USGS scientists and others continue to make progress in understanding this deadly bat disease. WNS has killed over 5 million bats since it first appeared in New York in 2007, and the disease, caused by the fungus Geomyces destructans, has spread at an alarming rate to 19 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces (view map).

USGS Science and White Nose Syndrome

USGS science is providing the foundation for informed decisions to manage this devastating wildlife disease.

“The USGS research to combat white nose syndrome lies in what scientists call ‘Pasteur’s Quadrant’: it is not only of immediate and intense need because of the havoc that this disease is causing to an economically important animal, but it also advances the frontier of understanding of how fungi thrive in the environment,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “The race is on: scientist versus fungus, with the survival of several important species of bats at stake.”

Partnerships among agencies – federal, state, tribal, academic, and NGOs – have been essential to combating WNS. In particular, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has funded multi-agency studies that address priorities of the WNS National Plan for assisting states, federal agencies, and tribes to manage WNS. Over the past three years, USGS scientists have published over 30 scientific articles contributing to the ever increasing understanding of this deadly disease.

“The partnership with USGS has provided a solid framework for science-based management of the disease,” said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National White-Nose Syndrome Coordinator Jeremy Coleman. “Working cooperatively with our agency partners provides an opportunity to more efficiently and effectively address priorities in working toward containment of white-nose syndrome.”

WNS Fungus Findings

Scientists are currently searching for weak links in WNS disease processes to break cycles of infection and to slow the spread of this disease. In one of these studies, recently published in the journal PLoS ONE, scientists at USGS National Wildlife Health Center have carefully defined the effects of temperature on the growth of the WNS causing fungus, G. destructans. In the laboratory, scientists have shown that small changes in temperature, consistent with those found in bat caves, affect the overall growth rate and physiology of the fungus. Within caves or mines, localized variations in microclimates provide different environments for bats to hibernate. Different species of bats prefer different microclimate conditions for hibernation, which has been proposed as one of the reasons why some bat species may be more susceptible to WNS than others.

USGS scientists, in collaboration with EcoHealth Alliance and other agencies, have recently initiated a two-year study to build upon the knowledge gained in this laboratory study. They will measure variations in microclimates within actual bat caves and compare these conditions to the presence and abundance of G. destructans in the environment and on bats at those locations. Information from this study will then be used to predict the distribution of G. destructans within bat caves and to estimate the potential for progression of WNS at hibernation sites across the landscape.

Hibernating bats showing signs of infections with Geomyces destructans, the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome.

In two additional studies, published in the journal Mycologia , USGS and U.S. Forest Service  scientists  teamed up with others to learn more about the fungal ecology of bat hibernation sites and developed an improved diagnostic test for the fungus. Researchers examined G. destructans within the broader group of related Geomyces fungal species, most of which do not cause disease in bats, but are common in bat caves. This information is helping scientists to understand more about the diversity of related fungi in bat caves as well as the delicate ecology of these underground ecosystems. These findings were then used in the second study to develop a new highly sensitive and specific test that can differentiate between G. destructans and similar fungal species. This new test provides a valuable and reliable tool for enhanced diagnosis and surveillance of WNS.

More information on white-nose syndrome in bats can be found at:

USGS National Wildlife Health Center, WNS page

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, White-Nose Syndrome.org

USGS Fort Collins Science Center, WNS page

Caretakers painstakingly feed, nurture, and teach the daily tasks of survival to whooping cranes all while hiding their true identity behind baggy costumes. The team members never use human voices, exercise and take the cranes for walks and swims, and use puppets to deliver food to the baby whooping cranes they care for — all so that they can be released to the wild.

Whooping crane chicks have definite personalities. Chick L10 was shy but blossomed into a rascal, and Chick L8 had an early tendency toward being a bit of a bully, but eventually learned to get along with his peers.

Whooping crane Chick L8 was hatched on June 4, 2010. When he was about a month old, he became a “meanie” toward other chicks and could not be walked with any other cranes. He had to live and exercise by himself for a long time and was the last bird to be socialized with the rest of his cohorts. But it turns out that Chick L8 was just a late bloomer, and he eventually learned to live peaceably with others. Chick L8 has a sister, who was also released in Louisiana.

Both of these gangly, adolescent whooping cranes were shot and killed in Louisiana on Monday, October 10, 2011, and though two alleged shooters have been identified, the world of whooping crane scientists, managers, caretakers, volunteers, and birders is in mourning — once again.

Tragically, these are the sixth and seventh shooting deaths of reintroduced endangered U.S. whooping cranes in 2011.

Here, at the USGS’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, in Laurel, Maryland, where we raised Chicks L8 and L10 until their release in Louisiana last winter, we find these killings personally and scientifically heartbreaking and ethically unacceptable.

These cranes — including each of those senselessly killed by people — represent an investment of hope for whooping cranes to wing their way back to a more certain future. And with only about 430 whooping cranes now in the wild, each bird counts.

At Patuxent, we have been raising whooping crane chicks for 45 years; the species had reached a low of about 16 adult birds by the late 1930s and was in grave danger of extinction, as they still are today. Whenever any of our chicks leave our USGS Maryland facilities for the wild, we bid them farewell with hope and, yes, a bit of parental worry for their future. We know some chicks won’t make it because survival is tenuous in the natural world.

Of the 10 cranes we raised and released last year in Louisiana, only 5 remain alive — one is presumed dead, another appears to have been eaten by a predator, and a third was euthanized because of a lung infection. But these shooting deaths are another thing entirely, and entirely preventable.

Each such death is a robbery of the investment made by the American public, and negates countless hours of careful work by scientists, aviculturists, volunteers, and others toward the conservation of this magnificent bird.

Whooping crane Chick L10 was hatched on June 9, 2010, from a breeding pair at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. As a young chick, Chick L10 was timid about going into the back field for her exercise walks. But by the time she was released in Louisiana, Chick L10 had become confident and unafraid. She was even known for sneaking up on the costumed technicians and pecking at them.

Last year, when we sent these and eight other chicks to Louisiana, we celebrated with the State and others about the species return there after an absence of some 60 years. These shootings are, as the State of Louisiana noted, “a profound setback” for the reintroduction program. The death of two birds will not destroy the natural world, but the attitude that has led to the intentional killing of endangered species is a clear indication of the extent of education needed to develop a more generally accepted conservation ethic.

Ultimately, the understanding that human welfare is intimately and directly tied to conservation of intact natural ecosystems is crucial.

As for us, the USGS whooping crane team, we will continue raising chicks and working with our dedicated partners to restore this species because we believe that chick by chick, bird by bird, these cranes will and should have a chance to one day thrive in the wild again. It is wonderfully gratifying to be able to contribute to the survival of such a spectacular species and to recognize them as a symbol of how humans can conserve and even add to the ecological integrity of our environment.

John B. French, Jr., Ph.D., is the leader of the Whooping Crane Program at the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

Over the past 75 years, the conservation research at Patuxent has helped rescue species from the brink of extinction, provided the key data to ban or regulate harmful pollutants, and modeled how climate change will affect populations and habitat. Celebrate with us on Oct. 15, 2011, in Laurel, Maryland.

By 1936, devastating losses of wildlife populations — the result of market hunting, habitat degradation, and drought — were threatening the Nation’s natural resource heritage.

In response, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt launched a new era of wildlife conservation by creating the Patuxent Research Refuge.

Over the next 75 years, this research and conservation center would

• contribute to rescuing species from the brink of extinction,
• develop critical tools to manage hunted waterfowl species,
• provide the key data to ban or regulate pollutants that negatively impact people and wildlife, and
• model the effects of climate change on populations and habitat.

Patuxent has developed the models of the Nation’s migratory waterfowl harvest, established the effects of DDT on birds, created the science to breed and restore Whooping Cranes and other endangered species, produced fundamental methods to estimate wildlife populations, and directed the advancement of management practices used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System and other land resource managers.

Center History

A costumed technician feeds a 3-day-old whooper chick. All of the whooping cranes alive in North America today derive from a flock of about 16 birds, of which maybe only 3 or 4 females were laying eggs. The cranes were essentially extinct in the wild, but through the hard work of Federal, State, and nongovernmental groups, about 250 whooping cranes live in the wild now. Another 150 more whoopers live in captivity, with USGS having the largest breeding flock of about 60 birds. About half of these USGS-raised birds are returned to the wild each year. Photo credit: Kathleen O'Malley, USGS.

In 1936, despite facing the Great Depression and 21 percent unemployment in America, President Roosevelt and conservation leaders Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling and Ira Gabrielson had the courage, foresight, and commitment to create the Nation’s first wildlife research center.

Originally created within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the research program at Patuxent is now a part of the Department of the Interior as the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. The Patuxent Research Refuge, also within the DOI, is part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Patuxent conservation science campus is co-located on more than 12,750 acres of wildlife habitat in the Baltimore–Washington corridor.

The USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and the USFWS Patuxent Research Refuge continue to play critical roles in education, outreach, and the development of wildlife conservation science.

Through the decades, Patuxent’s scientists have been responsible for many important advances in natural resource conservation and have had global impact with research and partnerships in 76 countries on all seven continents.

Today

Seventy-five years later, wildlife conservation science is again at a crossroads.

Climate change, water availability, changes in land use, renewable energy development, and urbanization present new challenges to conservation programs. Solutions are complex. They must be interdisciplinary in nature and landscape oriented.

Today the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center is helping the Nation to

• track, understand, and prevent the spread of contagious diseases, such as bird flu;
• understand the causes and implications of the decline in pollinators, such as bees;
• determine the cause and find solutions for wildlife mortality, such as white-nose syndrome in bats and plague in endangered black-footed ferrets;
• understand the impacts of wind power on bats and birds;
• understand how pollutants and contaminants, including persistent organic pollutants, pesticides, petroleum crude oil, mercury, and lead shot, affect wildlife and their recovery;
• monitor the decline, threats to, and recovery of endangered species; and
• much more.

USGS scientists at Patuxent in Laurel, Maryland, along with their USGS  Biological Survey Unit counterparts at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, remain committed to solving the wildlife and environmental challenges of tomorrow.

Anniversary Celebrations at Patuxent

The Patuxent Wildlife Research Center wants to celebrate its 75^th anniversary with you. Please browse our public events.

Join us for the Patuxent Wildlife Festival on October 15, 2011, at Patuxent’s National Wildlife Visitor Center in Laurel, Maryland. Enjoy live animals, children’s crafts, tram tours, live music, scientific demonstrations, and behind-the-scenes research tours. Visit our Whooping Crane and Sea Duck colonies where scientists raise and study these species.

New Wildlife Health Reporter Tool

Two new tools that enable the public to report sick or dead wild animals could also lead to the detection and containment of wildlife disease outbreaks that may pose a health risk to people.

Learn more