Conservation genetics and infectious disease in Brandt's bats

鼠耳蝠是一个高度物种化的类群，是研究遗传多样性和比较基因组学的理想系统。这项研究将集中在一个不寻常的系统，其中一个物种在欧洲，勃兰特的蝙蝠，是最近的殖民者来自北美物种，小棕蝙蝠。勃兰特蝙蝠似乎已经适应了一种在欧洲栖息地广泛存在的致病真菌的感染。这种真菌最近传播到北美，造成小棕蝙蝠的毁灭性损失。在这里，我们将研究遗传多样性和蝙蝠物种对新传染病的适应能力，特别是考虑到气候变化后预期的范围变化。

Myotis bats are a highly speciose group, which make them attractive systems to study genetic diversiy and comparative genomics. This study will focus on an unusual system where one species in Europe, Brandt's bats, are recent colonists derived from a North American species, little brown bats. Brandt's bats, appear to have adapted to tolerate infection by a pathogenic fungus found widely in European roosts. This fungus has recently spread to North America causing devastating losses in little brown bats. Here we will examine genetic diversity and the resilience of bat species to novel infectious disease, particularly given range-shifts expected following climate change.