White-nose syndrome restructures bat skin microbiomes.
Meghan Ange-Stark, Katy L Parise, Tina L Cheng, Joseph R Hoyt, Kate E Langwig, Winifred F Frick, A Marm Kilpatrick, John Gillece, Matthew D MacManes, Jeffrey T Foster
Author Information
Meghan Ange-Stark: Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire , Durham, New Hampshire, USA. ORCID
Katy L Parise: Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire , Durham, New Hampshire, USA.
Tina L Cheng: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California , Santa Cruz, California, USA.
Joseph R Hoyt: Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech , Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.
Kate E Langwig: Department of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech , Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. ORCID
Winifred F Frick: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California , Santa Cruz, California, USA.
A Marm Kilpatrick: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California , Santa Cruz, California, USA.
John Gillece: Pathogen and Microbiome Institute, Northern Arizona University , Flagstaff, Arizona, USA.
Matthew D MacManes: Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire , Durham, New Hampshire, USA.
Jeffrey T Foster: Department of Molecular, Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire , Durham, New Hampshire, USA. ORCID
IMPORTANCE: Inherent complexities in the composition of microbiomes can often preclude investigations of microbe-associated diseases. Instead of single organisms being associated with disease, community characteristics may be more relevant. Longitudinal microbiome studies of the same individual bats as pathogens arrive and infect a population are the ideal experiment but remain logistically challenging; therefore, investigations like our approach that are able to correlate invasive pathogens to alterations within a microbiome may be the next best alternative. The results of this study potentially suggest that microbiome-host interactions may determine the likelihood of infection. However, the contrasting relationship between Pd and the bacterial microbiomes of and indicate that we are just beginning to understand how the bat microbiome interacts with a fungal invader such as Pd.
