Bat skin microbiome and the association of ecoregion and bat species that impacted isolation of members with bioactivity against Pseudogymnoascus destructans.
Salazar-Hamm PS, Romero-Jiménez MJ, Caimi NA, Amses KR, Marshall Hathaway JJ
Wildlife Microbiome
Bats are some of the most prolific insect hunters in the night sky above your garden — a single colony can consume millions of mosquitoes and crop pests per night, and the fungal disease wiping them out has already caused measurable pest rebounds in agricultural regions.
A deadly fungal disease called white-nose syndrome has been killing bats by the millions across North America. Scientists swabbed the skin of hundreds of bats in the Southwest and found naturally occurring bacteria living on them that can fight off this fungus. The type of bat and the landscape it lives in both turned out to matter a lot for which protective bacteria were present.
Key Findings
2,936 bacteria were isolated from 314 bats across 12 species at 6 sites; 88.4% belonged to the Actinomycetota group, which is known for producing natural antifungals.
61 out of 1,089 tested bacterial isolates showed activity against Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the fungus causing white-nose syndrome.
Ecoregion and bat species were the two statistically significant variables predicting whether a bat carried bacteria capable of inhibiting the disease-causing fungus.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers collected bacteria from the skin and fur of 314 bats across Arizona and New Mexico, identifying 61 strains that can fight the fungus destroying bat populations across North America. Bat species and local habitat type were the strongest predictors of which bats carried these protective microbes.
Abstract Preview
Microbiome constituents can serve as a primary defense against vertebrate pathogens. This may be crucial to the protection of North American bats who have been devastated over the last two decades ...
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