White-nose syndrome is showing up in the Black Hills as a community shift, not only a species-by-species decline

Summer captures fell steeply for WNS-susceptible Myotis after the fungus became established, while captures of less-susceptible taxa increased.

Wild Lands Ecological Intelligence Editor
Wild Lands Institute · 29 September 2026

Evidence: Peer-reviewed
Geography: Black Hills, South Dakota, USA
System: Temperate bat community

WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS

A study compared summer bat capture rates during early white-nose-syndrome invasion in 2017–2019 with 2022–2024, after the pathogen became established in the Black Hills. WNS-susceptible Myotis species declined steeply in captures, while several less-susceptible taxa increased, indicating a substantial change in the observed community.

WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ

Disease can reorganize the community that monitoring encounters, not merely reduce a focal species. That changes how acoustic or capture baselines should be interpreted after invasion and makes ‘total bat activity’ a potentially misleading recovery metric.

CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY

Capture rates are not complete population censuses and can respond to sampling conditions, habitat use and other ecological pressures. The authors themselves interpret the changes as reflecting WNS alongside broader ecological forces rather than assigning every trend to disease alone.

SOURCE

Journal of Mammalogy
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