News Finding: Most of the mortality is in late winter, when both infection prevalence (the number of infected bats) and infection loads (the amount of fungus on individual bats) are highest.
Paper Finding: Colony sizes among seasons broadly overlapped despite directionally opposite patterns of infection prevalence, suggesting that larger winter colony sizes are not the primary driver of differences in transmission among seasons.
News Context: When the bats start hibernating, it's almost like they become petri dishes for this fungus to grow on." Most of the mortality is in late winter, when both infection prevalence (the number of infected bats) and infection loads (the amount of fungus on individual bats) are highest. "The peak load in late winter is probably what's driving mortality," Langwig said.
Paper Context: Furthermore, for M. lucifugus, transmission was unrelated to seasonal changes in colony size. Colony sizes among seasons broadly overlapped despite directionally opposite patterns of infection prevalence, suggesting that larger winter colony sizes are not the primary driver of differences in transmission among seasons. Although winter colonies affected by WNS decline over the winter, colony sizes would have to be 100 times higher in early winter to alter the qualitative relationship between seasonal colony size and transmission.