Search Results (13)

We assembled and annotated the complete mitochondrial genomes of Lycalopex vetulus (hoary fox), Cerdocyon thous (bush dog), Tayassu pecari (white-lipped peccary), and Tadarida brasiliensis (Brazilian free-tailed bat). The mitogenomes exhibited typical vertebrate structures, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 tRNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, and a D-loop region. Phylogenetic reconstruction using the 13 protein-coding genes revealed robust relationships among species within Carnivora, Chiroptera, and Artiodactyla, corroborating previous studies. Secondary structure analysis of tRNAs and ribosomal genes showed slight variations among species of the same order. This research highlights the importance of mitochondrial genomics in understanding the evolutionary relationships and genetic diversity of Cerrado mammals, contributing to conservation efforts for this unique ecosystem. Full article

Agriculture is a leading cause of biodiversity loss, making the transition to sustainable agroecological practices crucial. Insectivorous bats play a crucial role as biological controllers in regard to agricultural crops, serving as important insect predators. The purpose of this study is to assess bat communities in three distinct habitats, namely the interior of a vineyard, native vegetation, and the transitional edge between them, by analyzing the echolocation patterns of different species. Generalized linear mixed models were used to evaluate the influence of landscape characteristics on bat communities and at the species level, allowing the incorporation of variables at different scales (at 10 m, 100 m, and 1000 m radius) from each sampling site. Our results show that edges enhance bat richness, their general activity, and feeding patterns, and are of particular benefit to certain species: Tadarida brasiliensis, Myotis chiloensis, and Lasiurus varius. Implementing agroecological practices, such as the maintenance of tree hedgerows at the landscape scale, along with native vegetation at the landscape scale, can amplify feeding activity in vineyards, thereby enhancing the provision of ecosystem services in agroecosystems. The edges of vineyards and natural vegetation are crucial for providing habitats for bats and increasing their foraging activity, as well as providing a way to enhance agroecological practices in vineyards to bolster ecosystem services. Full article

Urbanization is one of the leading causes of habitat loss, which has increased significantly in tropical regions in recent years, leading to the loss of species, their ecological functions, and evolutionary history. To determine the effect of urbanization on the diversity of bat communities in urban and suburban environments, we analyzed the α and β taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversities at four sites along urbanization gradients surrounding a rapidly expanding city (Oaxaca City) in southern Mexico. We recorded bats using conventional techniques such as mist nets and acoustic monitoring. We calculated the diversity of bats in four sites with different urbanization conditions: urban (1), suburban (1), and rural (2). To assess the degree of total differentiation and components of bat turnover and nestedness between sites, we calculated the β taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversities. A total of 33 bat species were recorded. The highest taxonomic and functional diversity was observed in the Center of Oaxaca (the site with the highest level of urbanization). In contrast, the highest phylogenetic diversity was found in the West (the site with the lowest level of urbanization). The total β taxonomic diversity was higher than the functional and phylogenetic diversity. Regarding the contributions of turnover and nestedness, turnover made a more significant contribution than nestedness to the taxonomic and phylogenetic β diversity. In contrast, functional nestedness contributed more to the functional β diversity than turnover. Tadarida brasiliensis, Desmodus rotundus, Sturnira hondurensis, and S. parvidens were recorded in all three urbanization conditions. In the most urbanized site, four Myotis species were recorded: M. fortidens, M. keaysi, M. thysanodes, and M. velifer. We suggest that the analysis of different dimensions of diversity is essential and should be considered to strengthen conservation strategies; moreover, we suggest the preservation of native vegetation mosaics and water bodies within the city to maintain bat diversity. Full article

Insectivorous bats play a crucial role in agroecosystems by providing invaluable pest control services. With the escalating impacts of climate change, a comprehensive understanding of the environmental factors influencing bat activity becomes imperative for their conservation in agricultural landscapes. This study investigates the influence of weather conditions, specifically air temperature and relative humidity, on the timing activity and the relative abundance of five insectivorous bat species in central Chile. Data from automatic bat detectors and climatological stations are utilized for analysis. Our results unveil species-specific behaviors, with Tadarida brasiliensis exhibiting early emergence and extended activity periods compared to other bat species. Histiotus montanus and Lasiurus villosissimus display delayed onsets on more humid evenings, whereas Lasiurus varius and T. brasiliensis initiate activity earlier on colder nights compared to warmer ones. Relative humidity emerges as a key factor influencing relative abundance for all species, with more minutes with bat passes detected on drier nights. These findings suggest that global warming may influence observed bat behaviors, potentially altering foraging patterns and activity levels of these bat species. Moreover, as climate change continues, understanding the long-term impact on bat populations and their adaptive strategies is crucial for effective conservation measures. Further studies exploring these dynamics can provide valuable insights for shaping conservation efforts in the face of evolving environmental challenges. Full article

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is presumed to have originated from wildlife and shares homology with other bat coronaviruses. Determining the susceptibility of North American bat species to SARS-CoV-2 is of utmost importance for making decisions regarding wildlife management, public health, and conservation. In this study, Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) were experimentally infected with two strains of SARS-CoV-2 (parental WA01 and Delta variant), evaluated for clinical disease, sampled for viral shedding and antibody production, and analyzed for pathology. None of the bats (n = 18) developed clinical disease associated with infection, shed infectious virus, or developed histopathological lesions associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. All bats had low levels of viral RNA in oral swabs, six bats had low levels of viral RNA present in the lungs during acute infection, and one of the four bats that were maintained until 28 days post-infection developed a neutralizing antibody response. These findings suggest that Brazilian free-tailed bats are permissive to infection by SARS-CoV-2, but they are unlikely to contribute to environmental maintenance or transmission. Full article

Research Highlights: Seasonal variation in environmental conditions coinciding with reproductive and energetic demands might result in seasonal differences in species-specific habitat use. We studied a winter assemblage of insectivorous bats and found that species acted as habitat generalists during winter compared to expectations based on the summer active season. Background and Objectives: In temperate regions, seasonal fluctuations in resource availability might restructure local bat assemblages. Initially perceived to only hibernate or migrate to avoid adverse winter conditions, temperate insectivorous bats appear to also employ intermediate overwintering strategies, as a growing body of literature suggests that winter activity is quite prevalent and even common in some lower latitude areas. However, to date, most studies have exclusively assessed habitat associations during summer. Because habitat use during summer is strongly influenced by reproduction, we hypothesized that habitat associations might differ during the non-reproductive winter period. We used acoustic monitoring to assess the habitat associations of bats across a managed pine landscape in the southeastern United States. Materials and Methods: During the winters of 2018 and 2019, we deployed acoustic detectors at 72 unique locations to monitor bat activity and characterized vegetation conditions at two scales (microhabitat and landscape). We used linear mixed models to characterize species-specific activity patterns associated with different vegetation conditions. Results: We found little evidence of different activity patterns during winter. The activity of three species (hoary bat: Lasiurus cinereus; southeastern myotis: Myotis austroriparius; and tricolored bat: Perimyotis subflavus) was not related to vegetation variables and only modest relationships were evident for four other species/groups (big brown bat: Eptesicus fuscus; eastern red bat: L. borealis; Seminole bat: L. seminolus; evening bat: Nycticeius humeralis; and Brazilian free-tailed bat: Tadarida brasiliensis). Conclusions: During winter, the bats in our study were active across the landscape in various cover types, suggesting that they do not exhibit the same habitat associations as in summer. Therefore, seasonal differences in distributions and habitat associations of bat populations need to be considered so that effective management strategies can be devised that help conserve bats year round. Full article

Rabies is a zoonotic disease caused by the rabies virus (RABV) that causes fatal encephalitis in mammals. Bats can transmit the disease to urban canines and felines, which rarely infect humans, establishing a secondary link. The last case of human rabies in Argentina was transmitted by a dog in 2008. We present the first case of human rabies originating from an insectivorous bat, Tadarida brasiliensis, transmitted by a feral cat in Buenos Aires province, Argentina. Full article

Alphaviruses (Togaviridae) are arthropod-borne viruses responsible for several emerging diseases, maintained in nature through transmission between hematophagous arthropod vectors and susceptible vertebrate hosts. Although bats harbor many species of viruses, their role as reservoir hosts in emergent zoonoses has been verified only in a few cases. With bats being the second most diverse order of mammals, their implication in arbovirus infections needs to be elucidated. Reports on arbovirus infections in bats are scarce, especially in South American indigenous species. In this work, we report the genomic detection and identification of two different alphaviruses in oral swabs from bats captured in Northern Uruguay. Phylogenetic analysis identified Río Negro virus (RNV) in two different species: Tadarida brasiliensis (n = 6) and Myotis spp. (n = 1) and eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEEV) in Myotis spp. (n = 2). Previous studies of our group identified RNV and EEEV in mosquitoes and horse serology, suggesting that they may be circulating in enzootic cycles in our country. Our findings reveal that bats can be infected by these arboviruses and that chiropterans could participate in the viral natural cycle as virus amplifiers or dead-end hosts. Further studies are warranted to elucidate the role of these mammals in the biological cycle of these alphaviruses in Uruguay. Full article

Bats are natural reservoirs of a variety of zoonotic viruses, many of which cause severe human diseases. Characterizing viruses of bats inhabiting different geographical regions is important for understanding their viral diversity and for detecting viral spillovers between animal species. Herein, the diversity of DNA viruses of five arthropodophagous bat species from Argentina was investigated using metagenomics. Fecal samples of 29 individuals from five species (Tadarida brasiliensis, Molossus molossus, Eumops bonariensis, Eumops patagonicus, and Eptesicus diminutus) living at two different geographical locations, were investigated. Enriched viral DNA was sequenced using Illumina MiSeq, and the reads were trimmed and filtered using several bioinformatic approaches. The resulting nucleotide sequences were subjected to viral taxonomic classification. In total, 4,520,370 read pairs were sequestered by sequencing, and 21.1% of them mapped to viral taxa. Circoviridae and Genomoviridae were the most prevalent among vertebrate viral families in all bat species included in this study. Samples from the T. brasiliensis colony exhibited lower viral diversity than samples from other species of New World bats. We characterized 35 complete genome sequences of novel viruses. These findings provide new insights into the global diversity of bat viruses in poorly studied species, contributing to prevention of emerging zoonotic diseases and to conservation policies for endangered species. Full article

Histoplasma capsulatum is a dimorphic fungus associated with respiratory and systemic infections in mammalian hosts that have inhaled infective mycelial propagules. A phylogenetic reconstruction of this pathogen, using partial sequences of arf, H-anti, ole1, and tub1 protein-coding genes, proposed that H. capsulatum has at least 11 phylogenetic species, highlighting a clade (BAC1) comprising three H. capsulatum isolates from infected bats captured in Mexico. Here, relationships for each individual locus and the concatenated coding regions of these genes were inferred using parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference methods. Coalescent-based analyses, a concatenated sequence-types (CSTs) network, and nucleotide diversities were also evaluated. The results suggest that six H. capsulatum isolates from the migratory bat Tadarida brasiliensis together with one isolate from a Mormoops megalophylla bat support a NAm 3 clade, replacing the formerly reported BAC1 clade. In addition, three H. capsulatum isolates from T. brasiliensis were classified as lineages. The concatenated sequence analyses and the CSTs network validate these findings, suggesting that NAm 3 is related to the North American class 2 clade and that both clades could share a recent common ancestor. Our results provide original information on the geographic distribution, genetic diversity, and host specificity of H. capsulatum. Full article

Bats provide important ecosystem services as pollinators, seed dispersers, and/or insect controllers, but they have also been found harboring different viruses with zoonotic potential. Virome studies in bats distributed in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America have increased dramatically over the past decade, whereas information on viruses infecting South American species is scarce. We explored the virome of Tadarida brasiliensis, an insectivorous New World bat species inhabiting a maternity colony in Rosario (Argentina), by a metagenomic approach. The analysis of five pooled oral/anal swab samples indicated the presence of 43 different taxonomic viral families infecting a wide range of hosts. By conventional nucleic acid detection techniques and/or bioinformatics approaches, the genomes of two novel viruses were completely covered clustering into the Papillomaviridae (Tadarida brasiliensis papillomavirus type 1, TbraPV1) and Genomoviridae (Tadarida brasiliensis gemykibivirus 1, TbGkyV1) families. TbraPV1 is the first papillomavirus type identified in this host and the prototype of a novel genus. TbGkyV1 is the first genomovirus reported in New World bats and constitutes a new species within the genus Gemykibivirus. Our findings extend the knowledge about oral/anal viromes of a South American bat species and contribute to understand the evolution and genetic diversity of the novel characterized viruses. Full article

Migratory colonies of up to thousands or millions of Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) are present in temperate areas of America. The monitoring of these massive colonies is crucial to know their conservation status and to evaluate the important ecosystem services that they provide. The objectives of this study were to characterize and to monitor, with an interdisciplinary approach, one of the largest bat colonies in South America, located in La Calera (Córdoba, Argentina). This study includes eight years of field observations inside of their shelter and outside when the colony emerged. Moreover, these observations were complemented with one year of weather radar detections using the Radar Meteorológico Argentino 1 (RMA1). To determine if a detection is a true or false massive emergence of bats, an algorithm was designed. We observed that this large colony of T. brasiliensis is maternal and migratory, just like others in South and North America. This colony arrives in early spring and births occur two months later, migrations occur in early autumn, meanwhile the shelter is empty or inhabited only by a small group of individuals during the cold seasons. The colony was estimated at 900,000 individuals before births occurred. The radar detection was coincident with field observations, when a simultaneous emergence was observed, as well as in the monitoring throughout the year. This represents the first study made in South America using radar technology for monitoring a bat colony. We here demonstrate that RMA1 is a powerful tool for monitoring this colony in the long term, and even to alert possible changes in permanence in time or in the number of individuals. Full article

Bats are natural reservoirs of coronaviruses and other viruses with zoonotic potential. Florida has indigenous non-migratory populations of Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) that mostly roost in colonies in artificial structures. Unlike their counterparts in Brazil and Mexico, the viruses harbored by the Florida bats have been underexplored. We report the detection of an alphacoronavirus RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) gene sequence in the feces of two of 19 different T. brasiliensis that were capture/release bats that had been evaluated for overall health. The RdRp sequence is similar but not identical to previously detected sequences in the feces of two different species of bats (T. brasiliensis and Molossus molossus) in Brazil. In common with the experience of others doing similar work, attempts to isolate the virus in cell cultures were unsuccessful. We surmise that this and highly related alphacoronavirus are carried by Brazilian free-tailed bats living in a wide eco-spatial region. As various coronaviruses (CoVs) that affect humans emerged from bats, our study raises the question whether CoVs such as the one detected in our work are yet-to-be-detected pathogens of humans and animals other than bats. Full article