White-nose syndrome detected in bats over an extensive area of Russia ...

• Main Authors: Kovacova, Veronika, Zukal, Jan, Bandouchova, Hana, Botvinkin, Alexander D., Harazim, Markéta, Martínková, Natália, Orlov, Oleg L., Piacek, Vladimir, Shumkina, Alexandra P., Tiunov, Mikhail P., Pikula, Jiri
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2018
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; ural mountains; Siberia
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13464880; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13464880

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Background: Spatiotemporal distribution patterns are important infectious disease epidemiological characteristics that improve our understanding of wild animal population health. The skin infection caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans emerged as a panzootic disease in bats of the northern hemisphere. However, the infection status of bats over an extensive geographic area of the Russian Federation has remained understudied. Results: We examined bats at the geographic limits of bat hibernation in the Palearctic temperate zone and found bats with white-nose syndrome (WNS) on the European slopes of the Ural Mountains through the Western Siberian Plain, Central Siberia and on to the Far East. We identified the diagnostic symptoms of WNS based on histopathology in the Northern Ural region at 11° (about 1200 km) higher latitude than the current northern limit in the Nearctic. While body surface temperature differed between regions, bats at all study ...