Date of Submission

Spring 2023

Academic Program

Biology

Project Advisor 1

Felicia Keesing

Abstract/Artist's Statement

White-nose syndrome is a disease spread between bats. It first appeared near Albany, New York in 2006 and has been spreading to the rest of the country extremely fast. White-nose syndrome kills bats while they hibernate in caves over the winter and is close to destroying some species completely. I wanted to find out how well bats are surviving, and what their populations look like in one of the first areas 2 affected by white-nose syndrome. To do this, I used recording devices that capture frequencies outside of the human range of hearing to find and identify bats flying at night. Analyzing my recordings, I found eight different species of bats, some of which are critically endangered. The most common species I recorded is one that seemed to be hit hardest by white-nose syndrome. If recovery from white-nose syndrome is possible, it might be observed first in the area where white-nose syndrome started. If it continues to kill bats, we would see species go extinct in this area first.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Download

This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.

Bard Off-campus Download

Bard College faculty, staff, and students can login from off-campus by clicking on the Off-campus Download button and entering their Bard username and password.

Share

COinS