ALBANY -- Researchers, cavers and others interested in bats traveled to Albany from across the U.S. and Canada for a three-day brainstorming session on the mysterious, mass die-off of bats in the Northeast.
The cause of the deaths, which have been documented in about 20 bat hibernation caves in New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, remains unknown. The phenomenon is called "white-nose syndrome" because a mold-like fungus is found powdering the snouts of many of the dead bats.
"The purpose of the meeting was to bring everybody together to share information so we're all working from a common knowledge base," Susi von Oettingen, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist from Concord, N.H., said as the meeting wound down on Wednesday afternoon.
The massive scale of the die-off was recognized in early January. This week's meeting was an effort to coordinate various research studies; share theories on possible causes; develop priorities for field studies during the summer breeding season and next winter's hibernation; map the progression of the die-off; explore funding sources; and create a clear definition of the syndrome.
Task forces were set up to study a broad range of issues — for example, developing a common scoring system for bat-wing damage to be used by researchers examining bats in the field.
Participants came from 14 states, eight universities, several federal agencies, and Canadian wildlife agencies.
The only comparable mass die-off, von Oettingen said, is colony collapse disorder, which started mysteriously wiping out honeybee colonies in the winter of 2006-07. In response to that phenomenon, federal agencies and universities held a major workshop in April 2007 to share knowledge and develop an action plan.
Several scientists involved in that effort presented a workshop at the Albany bat meeting to make suggestions for coordinating team research.
"They basically were training us in how to deal with something of this magnitude," von Oettingen said.
"The push now is to recognize this as a major regional, potentially national issue, and go after secure funding so we can continue to investigate it," von Oettingen said.
"This is the first opportunity to get together to discuss what we've found and where do we go from here," said Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
Peter Youngbaer of the National Speleological Society and Northeastern Cave Conservancy, which own and manage caves, said many members of caving groups have been helping research the bat die-off.
"As cave owners and managers, we're very concerned about what's going on with the bat hibernacula," Youngbaer said. The speleological society owns three caves where white-nose syndrome was first identified.
"The 12,000 members of the NSS are involved in sampling both in the affected region and in other areas which will serve as controls," Youngbaer said.
Beth Buckles is an anatomic pathologist at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, one of the labs that has been doing autopsies on bats.
"We're looking for tissue changes as well as infectious agents or contaminants," Buckles said. "We have found that many of the bats coming out of the affected hibernacula are very thin. We want to pursue why they're thin. It could be because of physiologic problems, environmental problems, or an infectious agent."
A priority is to evaluate what's going on in the summer before hibernation, Buckles said. "We'd like to look at population numbers, how well the bats are breeding, and what's happening to them right before they go into the hibernaculum. If they seem to be OK going into the caves, that would indicate there's something in the caves that's affecting them."
Working groups set up at the meeting will decide which bats to look at, and when, Buckles said. "If there's a maternity colony that we have a lot of background data on from before the outbreak, that might be a priority area to look at," she said.
If bats disappear from the landscape, there could be major ecological consequences, von Oettingen said. Bats are voracious predators of insects, with lactating females eating up to 73 percent of their body weight in insects per night, she said.
"This is unprecedented," von Oettingen said. "We don't know what effect it will have on the insect population and the environment if bats disappear. But it's going to be a hole in the ecosystem and we don't know what's going to fill it."
"The purpose of the meeting was to bring everybody together to share information so we're all working from a common knowledge base," Susi von Oettingen, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist from Concord, N.H., said as the meeting wound down on Wednesday afternoon.
The massive scale of the die-off was recognized in early January. This week's meeting was an effort to coordinate various research studies; share theories on possible causes; develop priorities for field studies during the summer breeding season and next winter's hibernation; map the progression of the die-off; explore funding sources; and create a clear definition of the syndrome.
Task forces were set up to study a broad range of issues — for example, developing a common scoring system for bat-wing damage to be used by researchers examining bats in the field.
Participants came from 14 states, eight universities, several federal agencies, and Canadian wildlife agencies.
The only comparable mass die-off, von Oettingen said, is colony collapse disorder, which started mysteriously wiping out honeybee colonies in the winter of 2006-07. In response to that phenomenon, federal agencies and universities held a major workshop in April 2007 to share knowledge and develop an action plan.
Several scientists involved in that effort presented a workshop at the Albany bat meeting to make suggestions for coordinating team research.
"They basically were training us in how to deal with something of this magnitude," von Oettingen said.
"The push now is to recognize this as a major regional, potentially national issue, and go after secure funding so we can continue to investigate it," von Oettingen said.
"This is the first opportunity to get together to discuss what we've found and where do we go from here," said Alan Hicks, a wildlife biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
Peter Youngbaer of the National Speleological Society and Northeastern Cave Conservancy, which own and manage caves, said many members of caving groups have been helping research the bat die-off.
"As cave owners and managers, we're very concerned about what's going on with the bat hibernacula," Youngbaer said. The speleological society owns three caves where white-nose syndrome was first identified.
"The 12,000 members of the NSS are involved in sampling both in the affected region and in other areas which will serve as controls," Youngbaer said.
Beth Buckles is an anatomic pathologist at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, one of the labs that has been doing autopsies on bats.
"We're looking for tissue changes as well as infectious agents or contaminants," Buckles said. "We have found that many of the bats coming out of the affected hibernacula are very thin. We want to pursue why they're thin. It could be because of physiologic problems, environmental problems, or an infectious agent."
A priority is to evaluate what's going on in the summer before hibernation, Buckles said. "We'd like to look at population numbers, how well the bats are breeding, and what's happening to them right before they go into the hibernaculum. If they seem to be OK going into the caves, that would indicate there's something in the caves that's affecting them."
Working groups set up at the meeting will decide which bats to look at, and when, Buckles said. "If there's a maternity colony that we have a lot of background data on from before the outbreak, that might be a priority area to look at," she said.
If bats disappear from the landscape, there could be major ecological consequences, von Oettingen said. Bats are voracious predators of insects, with lactating females eating up to 73 percent of their body weight in insects per night, she said.
"This is unprecedented," von Oettingen said. "We don't know what effect it will have on the insect population and the environment if bats disappear. But it's going to be a hole in the ecosystem and we don't know what's going to fill it."
