Publication details
Disease alters macroecological patterns of North American bats
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Global Ecology and Biogeography |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/geb.12290 |
| Field | Zoology |
| Keywords | macroecological patterns bats WNS |
| Description | Understanding macroecological patterns of species abundance and distributions are fundamental issues in ecology, but the causes of these patterns are still poorly known1-7. One difficulty is that species interactions, including infectious disease, may have caused precipitous population declines in the past and continue to suppress populations, but can be difficult to detect subsequently5,8-10. We studied the impacts of an emerging infectious disease on abundance and distributional patterns of its mammalian hosts. We used four decades of population monitoring data to compare sizes of 1,108 colonies of hibernating bats across Europe and North America before and after emergence of white-nose syndrome (WNS), a multi-host disease of hibernating bats that emerged in North America in 200611. Colony sizes before disease arrival in North America were four-fold larger than for ecologically and taxonomically similar species in Europe, even after accounting for habitat and climatic factors that could influence colony size. Seven years after its emergence, WNS had reduced North American bat colony sizes 10-fold until they were no longer significantly different than those in Europe, where the disease has likely been present for millennia12-15. White-nose syndrome has heavily impacted both rare and abundant species and resulted in local extinction of up to two-thirds of colonies of some North American bats. Our results suggest that disease emergence is an underappreciated driver of macroecological patterns of abundance and distribution. |
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