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Tomas Villada Cadavid

Candidature

PhD Candidate

Thesis Title

Winter hibernation biology of cave-roosting bats in south-eastern Australia: predicting their vulnerability to a fungal disease

Research Project:

Tomas Villada Cadavid Millions of bats in North America have died since 2006 from white-nose syndrome (WNS), a fatal fungal disease caused by the cold-loving fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd). This fungal pathogen only affects hibernating bats during winter in the northern hemisphere and has not yet been detected in the southern hemisphere. Recent risk assessments highlight a high probability of accidental introduction of Pd in Australia. However, knowledge of the risk of exposure to Pd may not suffice in establishing conservation measures when critical knowledge of the wintering biology of Australian cave-roosting bats is lacking.

My project aims to understand the winter hibernation behaviour and thermophysiology of cave-roosting bat species from south-eastern Australia occurring within areas of exposure risk, with a focus on two subspecies of the Large Bent-winged Bat, the Eastern Bent-winged Bat (Miniopterus orianae oceanensis) and Southern Bent-winged Bat (Miniopterus orianae bassanii), and the Eastern Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus megaphyllus).

I aim to 1) review the literature to identify the intrinsic and environmental drivers of how bats use torpor during hibernation 2) use acoustic monitoring to measure bat activity during winter and its correlation with environmental conditions, 3) survey caves during the hibernation season to determine roosting microclimatic preferences of bats, and 4) use temperature-sensitive telemetry to measure torpor and arousal patterns of bats over the winter.

By quantifying the winter behaviour and thermal biology of cave-roosting bats, this project will provide the key missing information needed to develop spatially explicit and species-specific models of winter energy budgets and hence vulnerability to WNS. These predictive models will help prioritize conservation efforts and inform government agencies about the risk of WNS to Australian bats. Moreover, this work will serve as a baseline to understand the vulnerability to WNS of bats in the southern hemisphere, including cooler areas of Africa and South America.

Finally, this project will help fill the knowledge gap on the winter biology of Australian cave bats. And, at the same time, it will contribute to increasing the knowledge of the biology of bats in subtropical and warm temperate zones of the southern hemisphere, where little research has been conducted on torpor and hibernation of cave-roosting bats.

Supervisors

A/Professor Chris Turbill, Professor Justin Welbergen