Wildlife Disease News Digest

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Higher temperatures helped new strain of West Nile virus spread, study finds
UC Santa Cruz - www.ucsc.edu
26 Jun 2008
Photo courtesy of L. Kramer

Higher temperatures helped a new strain of West Nile virus invade and spread across North America, according to a study published in the June 27 issue of the journal PLoS Pathogens.

"The study shows that the warmer the temperature, the greater the advantage of the new strain. It also indicates that increases in temperatures due to global climate change would have major effects on transmission of the virus," said A. Marm Kilpatrick, first author of the paper and a senior research scientist for the Consortium for Conservation Medicine.

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Cited Article

Temperature, Vira l Genetics, and the Transmission of West Nile Virus by Cul ex pipiens M osquitoes.
PLoS Pathog. 2008; 4(6): e1000092

Other West Nile Virus News
ProMed - West Nile virus update 2008

Mysterious killer hits bats
The Post-Star - www.poststar.com
25 Jun 2008
E DeMuth Judd
Photo Courtesy of The Post-Star

New York is known for many things: The Yankees, the Statue of Liberty, the Erie Canal, tons of apples, dead bats. New York is the place where the bats have started dying - dying by the thousands at the hands of an unknown killer.

"We call it 'white-nose syndrome' because we don't have a better name for it," said Alan Hicks, a mammal specialist with the state Department of Environmental Conversation's Endangered Species program. "It's, as yet, an unidentified something that's causing bats to die in very large numbers across the Northeast."

The most obvious symptom of this bat plague is a white fungus that appears on the nose of some, but not all, affected bats. Scientists don't know, however, if the fungus itself is killing the bats. One of the only things they are sure of at this point is that the first sick bats were spotted near Albany.

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'Fingerprinting' to catch coral killer
Science Alert - www.sciencealert.com.au
27 Jun 2008
Photo courtesy of Science Alert

Scientists are poised to solve a major underwater crime mystery and pinpoint the guilty suspects in the case of ‘who killed the coral reef’. 2007 Churchill Fellow Dr Morgan Pratchett, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, is applying a new technique to solve the issue of the role of coral reef fishes in finishing off coral reefs which have been weakened by bleaching and other impacts.

For some time researchers have suspected that starving fish, deprived of food by coral bleaching, may play an unfortunate but critical role in killing the few surviving corals. Dr Pratchett recently returned from the UK armed with stable isotope techniques that may help identify which fishes feed on, and potentially wipe out, reef corals. The technology has previously been used to study the food chain in large marine food fisheries, but never before to analyse fish behavior and impacts on coral reefs.

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Local marshes are thriving, but overall wildlife effect is unclear
fdlreporter - www.fdlreporter.com
27 Jun 2008
S Roznik
Area: Fond du Lac, WI - Map It

Photo courtesy of J Connaher

While flooding may be a bane to city wildlife, creatures living in rural areas of the county are flourishing in the now abundant wetlands. High water levels have replenished marshlands in the Eldorado and Mullet Creek wildlife areas, where drought conditions over the past two years had depleted natural habitat, said Mark Randall, a wildlife manager with the Department of Natural Resources.

"The water is the highest I've seen since I came here in 1999. Right now, it's four feet above average," he noted. In the cities, heavy rains and flooding have flushed additional organic material and nutrients into waterways, creating conditions ripe for fish kills caused by a bacterial disease called columnaris, according to the DNR. Yet despite the potential, the fact there have been no major fish kills seen since the June 12 flood tells DNR fish technician Bob Olynyk that the effects, if any, will be minimal.

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