Re: USA: Bats Die by the Thousands
#31:
"Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey?s Wildlife Health Center this fall established that the sugary smudges on affected bats are a previously undescribed type of fungus that thrives in the refrigerator-like cold of winter caves. David Blehert, head of microbiology at the Madison, Wis., center, is leading experiments to definitively establish whether the fungus causes white-nose syndrome.
Still, there is enough circumstantial evidence to lead biologists to focus on ways to stop the fungus.
Since the fungus likes it cold and moist, they could try to lower humidity levels in at least some crucial caves, though that could create other problems. Researchers are also looking at the possibility of a fungicide, or even a fungus-killing bacteria that could spread from bat to bat. Ward Stone, New York?s wildlife pathologist, said he has been able to culture a bacteria that lives on big brown bats and kills the white-nose fungus in a lab.
Still, tests need to be performed to see if any of the options are realistic. And as Blehert notes, time is ?our biggest enemy.?
Some resolving tryings starts to pop out.
Hopefully, the "thrives in the refrigerator like cold" quality, don't unveil an lab refrigerator history of the fungus
Now, apart wild speculations, disseminating new bacterial agents could atack the fungus, but as all knows, such lab bacteria can than mutate in some new strain on the field, and generate new problems.
Additionaly, if the fungus is an secondary consequence of an ruined immune system (and some sci. texts here published seems to point that it can't infect other organism), it would not work.
Lowering humidity would deminish the fungus proliferation, no matter the source of the illness, so it seems an good option if it is possible to achieve.
Strange that the NY region where it first appeared have not more answers now.
We hope that this story would not finish as the one with the many kinds of life forms on Earth in our time period - exterminated, or near it, at the same time when tons of scientific studies explained it why maybe and where it happens, but with no real "push button" power to change anything about ...
#31:
"Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey?s Wildlife Health Center this fall established that the sugary smudges on affected bats are a previously undescribed type of fungus that thrives in the refrigerator-like cold of winter caves. David Blehert, head of microbiology at the Madison, Wis., center, is leading experiments to definitively establish whether the fungus causes white-nose syndrome.
Still, there is enough circumstantial evidence to lead biologists to focus on ways to stop the fungus.
Since the fungus likes it cold and moist, they could try to lower humidity levels in at least some crucial caves, though that could create other problems. Researchers are also looking at the possibility of a fungicide, or even a fungus-killing bacteria that could spread from bat to bat. Ward Stone, New York?s wildlife pathologist, said he has been able to culture a bacteria that lives on big brown bats and kills the white-nose fungus in a lab.
Still, tests need to be performed to see if any of the options are realistic. And as Blehert notes, time is ?our biggest enemy.?
Some resolving tryings starts to pop out.
Hopefully, the "thrives in the refrigerator like cold" quality, don't unveil an lab refrigerator history of the fungus
Now, apart wild speculations, disseminating new bacterial agents could atack the fungus, but as all knows, such lab bacteria can than mutate in some new strain on the field, and generate new problems.
Additionaly, if the fungus is an secondary consequence of an ruined immune system (and some sci. texts here published seems to point that it can't infect other organism), it would not work.
Lowering humidity would deminish the fungus proliferation, no matter the source of the illness, so it seems an good option if it is possible to achieve.
Strange that the NY region where it first appeared have not more answers now.
We hope that this story would not finish as the one with the many kinds of life forms on Earth in our time period - exterminated, or near it, at the same time when tons of scientific studies explained it why maybe and where it happens, but with no real "push button" power to change anything about ...
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