News Finding: The researchers were surprised to discover that during the winter, when the bats are hibernating, the fungus can infect nearly every bat in a colony.
Paper Finding: The seasonal patterns of prevalence and loads of P. destructans were remarkably consistent for all six bat species, with a sharp increase in prevalence between autumn and early winter when bats began to hibernate and a peak in fungal load in late winter at the end of hibernation.
News Context: The researchers were surprised to discover that during the winter, when the bats are hibernating, the fungus can infect nearly every bat in a colony. Bats that survive the winter are able to clear the infection during summer when their body temperatures are above the growth limit of the fungus. But the remarkably high rate of infection during hibernation leads to high mortality rates at the time of year when bat populations are naturally at their lowest, before the females give birth in the summer.
Paper Context: Decreases in loads and prevalence over the summer did not parallel changes in colony size for M. lucifugus, which broadly overlapped and The seasonal patterns of prevalence and loads of P. destructans were remarkably consistent for all six bat species, with a sharp increase in prevalence between autumn and early winter when bats began to hibernate and a peak in fungal load in late winter at the end of hibernation. In contrast to many other systems , we found no support for the hypothesis that birth pulses drive seasonality.