Capture rates of Eptesicus fuscus increase following white-nose syndrome across the eastern US.

ABSTRACT: Emerging infectious diseases threaten wildlife globally. While the effects of infectious diseases on hosts with severe infections and high mortality rates often receive considerable attention, effects on hosts that persist despite infection are less frequently studied. To understand how persisting host populations change in the face of disease, we quantified changes to the capture rates of Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bats), a persisting species susceptible to infection by the invasive fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd; causative agent for white-nose syndrome), across the eastern US using a 30-year dataset. Capture rates of male and female E. fuscus increased from preinvasion to pathogen establishment years, with greater increases to the capture ra

SUBMITTER: Simonis MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11199122 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature