Fungus Likely to Wipe Out Common Bat in Northeast United States
Juicy bits:
Now, researchers report in the 6 August issue of Science that the
rate of decline is so severe it could cause one bat species to vanish
from the northeastern United States within 16 years, potentially
hurting agriculture and forests.
In the team's worst-case scenario, which assumes that 45% of the
little brown bat population continues to die each winter, there is a
99% probability of regional extinction within 16 years. "That hit us
like a brick," Kunz says. (The little brown bat lives throughout North
America, so the species itself won't go extinct). If mortality
declines to 10%, some little brown bats would last for 80 years, but
the population would be dramatically smaller.
Another stop-gap approach is for people in the northeast to build
simple bat houses. By offering smaller, warmer summer habitat for
bats, these houses could boost the odds that bats will reproduce
successfully, Kunz suggests. In the long term, the best hope is that
the bats develop resistance to the fungus. Kunz thinks there may be
hints that this is already happening in two colonies near Boston,
which have seen fewer bat deaths this past winter.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/fungus-likely-to-wipe-out-common.html
or http://tinyurl.com/24x3634
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com
For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
