WSU bat team is seeking a PhD candidate (stipend provided) to work on the ecology of the eastern horseshoe bat🦇 & its sensitivity to the impacts of fire 🔥 | https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/schools/grs/scholarships/current_scholarships/current_scholarships/ecology_of_the_eastern_horseshoe_bat_and_its_sensitivity_to_the_impacts_of_fire 📷 A. Musser

Beautiful figure showing bird 🐦 wings & legs evolve independently, while bat 🦇 wing & leg proportions are integrated. This may have inhibited bat adaptive responses such as lower rate of phenotypic evolution & homogeneous evolutionary dynamics in contrast to birds | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02572-9

5/ check out the accompanying Research Briefing that summarises the study in a lay-person manner: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-02169-x

4/ lastly, we simulated how drought would impact frog activity based on physiological limits. The combination of warming & drought will have the largest impact in the warmest quarter of the year.

3/ ecological types (arboreal, ground-dwelling, stream-dwelling) do not predict drying risk, but water-conserving strategies such as water-proof skin & ability to make cocoons are important predictors.

2/ frogs globally are also at risk to a combination of increasing drought intensity, frequency, & duration by 2100.

1/ we show areas where frogs occupy will increase in dryness by up to 33% by 2100.

Increasing land drying & drought will threaten water-sensitive species such as frogs 🐸. We examine their potential exposure risk under different warming scenarios | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02167-z | @NatureClimate

If you missed out on my talk today at NASBR, here is a poster that summarises the current progress of our work 🦇. #bats #WNS

4/ risk of exposure is widespread but lack of species-specific information on the wintering biology and immunity of cave bats in the southern hemisphere prevents accurate prediction of consequences of Pd infection 🚨

3/ we then mapped the exposure risk in the southern hemisphere based on the predicted cave temperatures & thermal dependency of Pd growth.

2/ we then conducted host-specificity analysis & showed Pd infection & developing WNS have low host specificity, meaning Pd infection is not restricted to a particular group of bats.

1/ we first summarised studies with traits that are predictive of #WNS sensitivity across bat species, such as cave use, whether hibernation has been studied, & whether they were tested for the pathogen Pd.

White-nose syndrome is a devastating fungal disease of North American cave-roosting bats 🦇. How will bats in the southern hemisphere fair if the pathogen reaches them? http://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14390 | #WNS

Human musculoskeletal simulations not only predict the optimal body mass for speed in humans 🏃, but also all mammals 🐆! Clemente et al suggest mass-speed represents general rules & not the result of phylogenetic or other ecological factors |
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52924-z

USC is searching for two Honours candidates for bat projects with research funding from WIRES.

Borneo is not only a biodiversity hotspot for herps, but also for bats! 5 🦇 species detected during one night of herping #WCH10

Plenty of endemic mammals encountered during the World Congress of Herpetology in Borneo. Proboscis monkeys, colugos, western tarsiers, and crab-eating macaques

One more week until #WCH10. Check out our symposium S2 on Tuesday with an amazing lineup of speakers. Stay hydrated 🥤and see you in #Kuching

High quality video surveillance in bat cave.