S6 E6: Excuse Me, But You Have Something On Your Nose: The Story of White Nose Syndrome

Hello and welcome to Cause of Death – 100 Seconds to Midnight. I’m your host, Jackie Moranty. In the last episode, I briefly mentioned White Nose Syndrome. It’s a terrible disease that has killed off about 90% of some species of bats in North America. If you haven’t listened to the last episode, I suggest that you go back and give that one a listen before we start this one. It gives a pretty good overview of the importance of bats to several ecosystems and to people. If you have listened to that episode, then you already know how invaluable this order is. Without them, we wouldn’t have several species of plants, nor would we have many vaccines, we may not have echolocation technology. Bats have given us so much. Now, we need to think about what we can do for them. Let’s begin with the etiology and pathology of White Nose Syndrome. White Nose Syndrome is caused by a pathogenic fungus called Pseudogymnoascus destructans that was formerly known as Geomyces destructans. After close study, the fungus was reclassified because it more closely resembles other fungi from the Pseudeurotiaceae family. P. destructans is a psychrophilic, or cold-loving, fungus that forms asymmetrically curved conidia. You can reach me on the website at www.causeofdeath100secs.net or you can email me at Jackie@causeofdeath100secs.net. My Link Tree can be found at: https://linktr.ee/CauseofDeathpod You can support Cause of Death here: Subscribe on Apple Subscriptions Patreon: https://www.Patreon.com/JackieMoranty Ko-Fi: https://www.ko-fi.com/causeofdeathluckycharmsunplugg Merch can be found at: https://www.teepublic.com/user/causeofdeathluckycharmsunplugged White Nose Syndrome Show Notes: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1009236 “Bats in the Anthropocene: Conservation of Bats in a Changing World. Edited by Christian C. Voigt and Tigga Kingston. Cham (Switzerland): Springer Open. $59.99. Ix + 606 P.; Ill.; Index. ISBN: 978-3-319-25218-6 (Hc); 978-3-319-25220-9 (Eb). 2016.” The Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 93, no. 2, June 2018, pp. 148–148, https://doi.org/10.1086/698057. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35635339/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5810475/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudogymnoascus_destructans https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7804951/#:~:text=Pseudogymnoascus%20destructans%20(Pd)%20causes%20white,pathogen%20persistence%2C%20transmission%20and%20viability. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0121329