Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

A novel method for estimating pathogen presence, prevalence, load, and dynamics at multiple scales

By Fort Collins Science Center April 1, 2025

FORT staff with the North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat) co-authored a publication in Scientific Reports on a new modeling framework for pathogen monitoring that can help practitioners identify and manage wildlife populations during the early infectious stages of disease spread.

Read the full publication
Media
Hibernating bats in a Vermont cave
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
The fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome in bats often spreads when bats are hibernating in large groups inside caves and other hibernacula like this one. The ability to detect fungal load and prevalence early within hibernacula may allow for earlier conservation interventions.

When pathogens invade a new wildlife population, measures of pathogen abundance may be so low that monitoring methods inconsistently detect pathogen presence. Scientists often exclude such detections from predictions of disease prevalence and spread. However, monitoring frameworks that can include and account for inconsistent detections could be more accurate in predicting pathogen arrival, early pathogen load, and early pathogen prevalence, allowing conservation practitioners to better manage pathogen spread.

In this study, researchers developed a probabilistic modeling framework for analyzing environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys of Pd (Pseudogymnoascus destructans; the fungal vector of white nose-syndrome) and used it to understand the spread of this pathogen among bat hibernacula — caves, mines, tunnels or other places where bats overwinter — from 2012–2017. 

The modeling framework accommodates early and imperfect detections to provide invasion histories for each monitored hibernacula with uncertainty. It is applicable to other monitoring programs focused on the spread of disease or invasive species. 

Related

link
Bats benefit from maintaining a close-knit roosting group.

North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat)

North American bats face unprecedented threats including habitat loss and fragmentation, white-nose syndrome, wind energy development, and climate change. However, it is difficult to evaluate the impacts of these threats due to a lack of basic information about the distribution and abundance of bats across the continent. Although bat monitoring has long been conducted in individual areas and for...
By
Biological Threats and Invasive Species Research Program, Species Management Research Program, Fort Collins Science Center, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center
link

North American Bat Monitoring Program (NABat)

North American bats face unprecedented threats including habitat loss and fragmentation, white-nose syndrome, wind energy development, and climate change. However, it is difficult to evaluate the impacts of these threats due to a lack of basic information about the distribution and abundance of bats across the continent. Although bat monitoring has long been conducted in individual areas and for...
Learn More
link
Little brown bat with white-nose syndrome

What is White-nose Syndrome?

White-nose syndrome is an emergent disease of hibernating bats that has spread from the northeastern to the central United States at an alarming rate. Since the winter of 2007-2008, millions of insect-eating bats in at least 40 states and eight Canadian provinces have died from this devastating disease. The disease is named for the white fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, that infects skin of...
link

What is White-nose Syndrome?

White-nose syndrome is an emergent disease of hibernating bats that has spread from the northeastern to the central United States at an alarming rate. Since the winter of 2007-2008, millions of insect-eating bats in at least 40 states and eight Canadian provinces have died from this devastating disease. The disease is named for the white fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, that infects skin of...
Learn More
link
Hibernating little brown bat with white muzzle and spots on wings typical of white-nose syndrome. (Photo by Greg Turner, Pennsyl

What species of bats are affected by White-nose Syndrome?

White-nose Syndrome mostly affects hibernating bats. More than half of the 47 bat species living in the United States and Canada hibernate to survive the winter. Twelve bat species, including two endangered species and one threatened species, have been confirmed with white-nose syndrome in North America. The causative fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans ( Pd), has been found on an additional six...
link

What species of bats are affected by White-nose Syndrome?

White-nose Syndrome mostly affects hibernating bats. More than half of the 47 bat species living in the United States and Canada hibernate to survive the winter. Twelve bat species, including two endangered species and one threatened species, have been confirmed with white-nose syndrome in North America. The causative fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans ( Pd), has been found on an additional six...
Learn More
link
Pollinating bat. Courtesy Ami Pate, National Park Service

Why are bats important?

By eating insects, bats save U.S. agriculture billions of dollars per year in pest control. Some studies have estimated that service to be worth over 3.7 billion dollars per year, and possibly as much as 53 billion dollars per year. This value does not, however, take into account the volume of insects eaten by bats in forest ecosystems and the degree to which that benefits industries like lumber...
link

Why are bats important?

By eating insects, bats save U.S. agriculture billions of dollars per year in pest control. Some studies have estimated that service to be worth over 3.7 billion dollars per year, and possibly as much as 53 billion dollars per year. This value does not, however, take into account the volume of insects eaten by bats in forest ecosystems and the degree to which that benefits industries like lumber...
Learn More
link
Image: Brown Bat

Where do bats live?

Bats can be found in almost all parts of the world and in most regions of the United States. In general, bats seek out a variety of daytime retreats such as caves, rock crevices, old buildings, bridges, mines, and trees. Different species require different roost sites. Some species, such as the Mexican free-tailed and gray bats live in large colonies in caves. A few solitary species, such as the...
link

Where do bats live?

Bats can be found in almost all parts of the world and in most regions of the United States. In general, bats seek out a variety of daytime retreats such as caves, rock crevices, old buildings, bridges, mines, and trees. Different species require different roost sites. Some species, such as the Mexican free-tailed and gray bats live in large colonies in caves. A few solitary species, such as the...
Learn More

Related

Get Our News

These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install an RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.

Biology News

Cooperative Research Units News

Ecosystems News

Fort Collins Science Center News

Was this page helpful?