Fungus Causing White-Nose Syndrome in Bats Accumulates Genetic Variability in North America with No Sign of Recombination.

ABSTRACT: Emerging fungal diseases of wildlife are on the rise worldwide, and the white-nose syndrome (WNS) epidemic in North American bats is a catastrophic example. The causal agent of WNS is a single clone of the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans. Early evolutionary change in this clonal population has major implications for disease ecology and conservation. Accumulation of variation in the fungus through mutation, and shuffling of variation through recombination, could affect the virulence and transmissibility of the fungus and the durability of what appears to be resistance arising in some bat populations. Our genome-wide analysis shows that the clonal population of P. destructans has expanded in size from a single genotype, has begun to accumulate variation through mutation, an

SUBMITTER: Trivedi J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5506559 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul-Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature