Researchers hunt for bat syndrome fungus

ALBANY -- Vishnu Chaturvedi is searching the vast kingdom of fungi for a silver bullet against a plague that has killed millions of bats throughout the Northeast since appearing in a Schoharie County cave.

At labs in the Wadsworth Center of the state Department of Health in Albany, incubators designed to mimic the bats' chilly underground world of caves and mines are slowly growing several hundred kinds of fungus.

The hope is that one may be able to overcome the fungus Geomyces destructans -- which is behind a deadly disorder called white-nose syndrome that infests caves where bats gather for winter hibernation, said Chaturvedi, head of the mycology department at Wadsworth, which studies fungi.

Caused by a cave-dwelling, cold-loving fungus, white-nose syndrome causes hibernating bats to wake up early and either freeze or starve when they leave caves in a futile hunt for insects to eat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently gave Wadsworth an $80,000 grant to support the work, on top of a $95,000 grant in 2011. This year's grant to Wadsworth was among $1.4 million given by the federal government to study the syndrome, the fungus and how it affects bats.

Since WNS first appeared in Howes Cave in upstate Schoharie County in 2006, federal wildlife officials have been searching unsuccessfully for a way to stop it and stem the loss of bats. Bats provide natural pest control that benefits farmers. They also help reduce the population of mosquitoes and other insects that can spread disease to people.

Researchers speculate the fungus, which gives infected bats a distinctive fuzzy white patch around their noses and mouths, was unintentionally brought into caves by people.

The disorder has since spread unchecked into 19 states and four Canadian provinces and threatens to drive some bat species to regional extinction, with federal officials estimating in January that up to 6.7 million bats have already died. The syndrome has spread into caves as far south as Alabama, as far west as Missouri and as far north as Maine, and northern Ontario.

"We need to find a way to break the cycle, so that bats can return to caves that are no longer infected with the fungus," Chaturvedi said. "We are looking at other fungus as a biological control."

Over the next several months, his lab will test two types of fungi already used commercially in farms, nurseries and greenhouses to protect crops like potatoes and apples from other destructive fungi, he said.

Also being grown are several hundred fungi taken last summer from a half-dozen bat caves in New York and Vermont. These also will be tested to see if they can inhibit the fungus.

Chaturvedi said that if any fungus appears promising as a cure, it could be applied to an infected cave as a field trial in the spring of 2013.