An Emerging Disease Causes Regional Population Collapse of a Common North American Bat Species

Threats to and from Bats Bats appear to be able to host an assortment of alarming pathogens, which, if they do not extirpate the bats, have implications for human health (see the Perspective by Daszak ). For example, exposure to bats is the main source of human rabies in the Americas. But rabies is not generally transmitted among people; humans are a dead end for the virus. Streicker et al. (p. 676 , see the cover) show that rabies virus lineages tend to be specific for bat lineages. It seems that although rabies viruses have the potential for rapid evolution, this property alone is not enough to overcome genetic barriers, which inhibit the onward transmission of rabies virus into a new species. White-nose…