The Geographic Distribution and Host Range
Since its emergence in Northeastern America, WNS spreads from New York State, USA, to neighbouring states and is now diagnosed in the following US states and Canadian (C) provinces: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington State, West Virginia, Wisconsin, New Brunswick (C), Nova Scotia (C), Prince Edward Island (C), Ontario (C) and Quebec (C) (US Fish and Wildlife Service March 2016a).
Seven bat species have been diagnosed with WNS in North America: big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), grey bat (Myotis grisescens), eastern small-footed bat (Myotis leibii), little brown bat (Myotis Iucifugus), northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis), Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) and tricolored bat (Perimyotis subflavus); Myotis Iucifugus being one of the most affected species. Further five American bat species have been detected with P. destructans but without confirming the disease: Rafinesque's big-eared bat (Corynorhinus rafinesquii), Virginia big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus), eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis), silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) and southeastern bat (Myotis austroriparius) (US Fish and Wildlife Service March 2016a).
In Europe P. destructans has been found on hibernating bats in almost every country from the most western border to the West Siberian plain of Palearctic Asia, namely, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Latvia, Luxemburg, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Ukraine. Photographs of bats suspicious for P. destructans infection were provided from Denmark, Romania and Turkey (Puechmaille et al.
2011; Simonovicova et al. 2011; Burger et al. 2013; das Neves Paiva-Cardoso et al. 2014; Barlow et al. 2015; Leopardi et al. 2015; Zukal et al. 2016).Seventeen bat species were found to carry the fungus in Europe: western barbastelle (Barbastella barbastellus) northern bat (Eptesicus nilssonii), Schreiber's bent-winged bat (Miniopterus schreibersii), Alcathoe myotis (Myotis alcathoe), Bechstein's bat (Myotis bechsteinii), lesser mouse-eared bat (Myotis blythii), Brandt's bat (Myotis brandtii), pond bat (Myotis dasycneme), Daubenton's bat (Myotis daubentonii), Geoffroy's bat (Myotis emarginatus), greater mouse-eared bat (Myotis myotis), whiskered bat (Myotis mystacinus), Natterer's bat (Myotis nattereri), brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus), grey long-eared bat (Plecotus austriacus), Mediterranean horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus euryale) and lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) (Puechmaille et al. 2011; Bandouchova et al. 2015; Zukal et al. 2016); Myotis myotis is most often detected to carry the fungus. The most recent discovery of P. destructans in Northeastern China on individuals of Alashanian pipistrelle (Hypsugo alaschanicus), greater tube-nosed bat (Murina leucogaster), eastern water bat (Myotis petax) and greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum) (Hoyt et al. 2016) extends the known geographic distribution of the fungus by far.
Phylogenetic investigations of the novel pathogen soon revealed that P. destructans isolates found in North America originate from a single clonal genotype (Rajkumar et al. 2011; Ren et al. 2012) supporting the idea of a recent entry of this pathogen into a new environment. Investigations of European isolates conversely found clear diversification of the different isolates indicating that P. destructans is enzootic in Europe for a long time (Leopardi et al. 2015). In the latter study, eight genomic loci were sequenced, and seven of these were found to be polymorphic among the European isolates, which is in sharp contrast to the reported absence of variation in North American isolates. Via combination of these gene loci for each of the investigated isolates, eight P. destructans haplotypes were discovered across Europe. Moreover, the most common of these haplotypes was shared with all North American isolates, and phylogenetic analyses of this haplotype revealed that samples from France, Germany and Belgium were the most basal (Leopardi et al. 2015). These results make the early hypothesis of an introduction of the fungus from Europe into North America indeed very likely.
13.6