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Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology
White-nose syndrome (WNS) is causing unprecedented declines in several species of North American bats. The characteristic lesions of WNS are caused by the fungus Geomyces destructans, which erodes and replaces the living skin of bats while they hibernate. It is unknown how this infection kills the b...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2010
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984388/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21070683 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-8-135 |
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author | Cryan, Paul M Meteyer, Carol Uphoff Boyles, Justin G Blehert, David S |
author_facet | Cryan, Paul M Meteyer, Carol Uphoff Boyles, Justin G Blehert, David S |
author_sort | Cryan, Paul M |
collection | PubMed |
description | White-nose syndrome (WNS) is causing unprecedented declines in several species of North American bats. The characteristic lesions of WNS are caused by the fungus Geomyces destructans, which erodes and replaces the living skin of bats while they hibernate. It is unknown how this infection kills the bats. We review here the unique physiological importance of wings to hibernating bats in relation to the damage caused by G. destructans and propose that mortality is caused by catastrophic disruption of wing-dependent physiological functions. Mechanisms of disease associated with G. destructans seem specific to hibernating bats and are most analogous to disease caused by chytrid fungus in amphibians. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2984388 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2010 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-29843882010-11-18 Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology Cryan, Paul M Meteyer, Carol Uphoff Boyles, Justin G Blehert, David S BMC Biol Opinion White-nose syndrome (WNS) is causing unprecedented declines in several species of North American bats. The characteristic lesions of WNS are caused by the fungus Geomyces destructans, which erodes and replaces the living skin of bats while they hibernate. It is unknown how this infection kills the bats. We review here the unique physiological importance of wings to hibernating bats in relation to the damage caused by G. destructans and propose that mortality is caused by catastrophic disruption of wing-dependent physiological functions. Mechanisms of disease associated with G. destructans seem specific to hibernating bats and are most analogous to disease caused by chytrid fungus in amphibians. BioMed Central 2010-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC2984388/ /pubmed/21070683 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-8-135 Text en Copyright ©2010 Cryan et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Opinion Cryan, Paul M Meteyer, Carol Uphoff Boyles, Justin G Blehert, David S Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology |
title | Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology |
title_full | Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology |
title_fullStr | Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology |
title_full_unstemmed | Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology |
title_short | Wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology |
title_sort | wing pathology of white-nose syndrome in bats suggests life-threatening disruption of physiology |
topic | Opinion |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984388/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21070683 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1741-7007-8-135 |
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