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The External Microbiome Of Bats: Effects Of Season, Site, Host Species, And Body Region, Kyle G. George
The External Microbiome Of Bats: Effects Of Season, Site, Host Species, And Body Region, Kyle G. George
Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations
White-nose syndrome is a cutaneous fungal disease that has been detrimental to North American bats for over 10 years, but few investigators have examined the natural microbiota living on these mammals. I explored the influence of season, geographic site, host species, and body region on the external microbiome of four cave-hibernating and two migratory species. Automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis was used to profile bacterial communities from three cutaneous regions of 222 bats across winter and summer sites in Michigan, Illinois, and Kentucky. Season, site, host species, and body region all influenced the composition of external bacterial communities, but geographic …