By Susan Milius
A novel disease could kill off the Northeastern population of the little brown myotis bat, a once-common fixture of summer nights, in as little as 16 years.
That’s the worst case from the first analysis of what white-nose syndrome could do to the region’s bat population, ecologists report in the Aug. 6 Science. First seen in North America in 2006, the disease is now killing Northeastern brown myotis bats at an overall average rate of 73 percent annually.
Mortality from emerging diseases does sometimes drop after the initial killing spree picks off weaker individuals, leaving hardier animals behind, says lead author Winifred F. Frick of Boston University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. And diseases may also spread more slowly as a population thins.