Emerging infectious diseases can have profound impacts on species communities. Spread of wildlife pathogens can be difficult to predict, but is often thought to occur between large populations in close proximity. White-nose syndrome, an emerging fungal disease of bats, has caused widespread declines in bat populations across Eastern North America. The recent invasion of the fungal pathogen to the Midwestern U.S. provides an unprecedented opportunity to observe local spread of a pathogen with rigorously collected absence data.
Results/Conclusions
We find that, contrary to initial predictions, hibernacula temperature was a much more significant predictor of local spread than population size, suggesting local environmental conditions were more important than bat movement. This finding also highlights the potential of failed introductions, which have been reported for WNS, and are likely more numerous than currently estimated. Linking local and continental spread dynamics will provide an important next step for evaluating the potential impact of the disease on bat communities in Western North America.