In This Issue

Excerpt

Olival kicks off this issue’s special feature on ‘Bats and Disease’ by describing the importance of bats through pollination, seed dispersal, and preying on agricultural pests. Bats provide “ecosystem services” all around the globe and Olival argues that it is time to end scientifically uninformed programs to cull bats. In a forum piece by Leendertz et al., the group notes that evidence confirming fruit bats as single, ultimate, natural reservoir for Ebola viruses is lacking and questions regarding transmission and circulation remain unanswered despite long term, intensive sampling of the main candidate species. Wood et al. argue that in order to maximize the chances to control Ebola virus and similar emerging infectious diseases arising from wildlife, public health policy needs to be based on the best available evidence. Field et al. used GPS data logger technology to explore the landscape utilization of black flying foxes and horses to study Hendra virus since it is likely transmitted to horses through oro-nasal contact with flying-fox urine, feces, or saliva. Openshaw et al. studied mortality and morbidity in livestock allowed to graze on dropped fruit or directly fed bat or bird-bitten fruit in the villages of Bangladesh and found that villagers were more likely to report illnesses and deaths in goats and cattle that were fed dropped fruit or bitten fruit. McGuire et al. researched white-nose syndrome, a disease that has killed millions of bats in North America, and used non-destructive diagnostic methods to study the pathophysiology of the disease. McMichael et al. identified temporal population physiological changes that inform epidemiological studies and assessment of putative physiological risk factors driving Hendra virus infection in Australian flying-foxes while Field et al. sought to identify the diversity and prevalence of coronaviruses in bats in the Australasian region. …