I wrote this article in 2015 in an Intro to Science Journalism class at UC Santa Cruz taught by Rob Irion. I mocked up the article here with a classic science magazine layout. I wanted to grab the reader with big, bold images of these creatures we don’t normally get to see up close, and the green and brown compliment each other well in an homage to the forests these little brown bats call home.
Researchers Find Promising Lead in Hunt for Bat Cure
The answer to saving North American bats may have been right under their noses. Researchers at UC Santa Cruz have discovered that naturally occurring bacteria on the skin of some bats may slow the spread of deadly fungus caused by white-nose syndrome. These results, part of an International effort to rescue rapidly declining bat populations in North America, were published in PLOS ONE on April 8.
The UCSC research team led by graduate student Joseph Hoyt collected 40 bacterial samples from the exposed nose, wing and ear skin of four different bat species, including the now-endangered northern long-eared bat. Six of the samples inhibited the spread of white-nose fungus in lab tests, and two of those fended off the fungus for over 35 days.
Researchers have been helpless to stop it, watching as the fungus guts cave after cave of their tiny residents. Several bat species are now endangered due to the disease, including the northern long-eared bat.
“The potential for a treatment is exciting, because this disease is raging across the country,” said paper coauthor Marm Kilpatrick, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz. The speed and ferocity of the disease’s attack on bat populations has been nothing short of harrowing for those who are tracking its progress.
Hoyt and his team are working quickly to test their findings. “We are analyzing data from tests on live bats now, and if the results are positive, the next step would be a small field trial,” he said. If the field trials are positive, researchers may start spraying vulnerable hibernating bats with the bacteria of their hardier relatives.
White-nose syndrome gets its name from the white fuzz that develops on the muzzle of most infected bats. The fungus infects the exposed wing, ear and face skin of hibernating bats. It kills them by disrupting their normal hibernation cycle, and forcing their sleep-deprived bodies into disease-fighting mode.
Scientists believe the disease probably came from Europe. North American bats have no natural defense because they were never exposed to the disease. What would be a minor head cold for European bats is a plague that has destroyed an estimated 6.7 million North American bats since its arrival in 2006.
Ecologists first spotted white-nose syndrome in a cave in New York State, probably brought there by one of the thousands of tourists that enjoy the site annually. Since then the disease has spread like wildfire throughout the Eastern US and into Canada, and is pushing further West.