Monday, Oct. 2, 2017 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
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he light turns gold as the pickup bumps along Goose Creek Road. By the time the researchers reach their destination, the sun has maybe an hour left in the sky. This is part of the plan. Tonight’s quarry lives in the dark. When night falls, they work in the glow of headlamps. They rig nets in the soft earth around a pond, and they lie and wait until the netting snags their prey. In latex-gloved hands, they cradle piggish faces squeaking above bodies no bigger than human palms. They inspect the translucent wings for signs of the disease wiping out these creatures. Then they open their hands and watch the bats fly back into the night. “That’s so cool,” researcher Hannah Friend says. Sometimes, the bats seem like nothing more than ghosts, half-seen figments fluttering across a swatch of sky. They elude the researchers on some nights, and fewer appear each year — as if the caves where they winter have claimed them entirely. A fungus-borne menace called white nose syndrome has massacred bat populations across the country over the past decade, rendering the species in some places functionally extinct. White nose has gnawed at Indiana, but not as thoroughly as it has some other regions, which makes the state ripe for research. Even as species such as the Indiana bat and the northern long-ear disappear, scientists know relatively little about them. Widespread interest only blossomed a decade ago, when biologists found themselves pressed for time by a fungus with a comically evil scientific name, Pseudogymnoascus destructans. Long deemed pests, predators and plague-bringers, bats may play crucial roles in their environments, in agriculture and in human health. So now, deep in these woods, the researchers work into the night taking samples of fur and droppings. They hope to find, while there’s still time, what the world stands to lose. * * * For centuries, humans have consigned bats to realms of danger, disease and death. Leviticus tells believers to “regard (them) as unclean.” The Mayan bat god Camazotz killed humans with sharp-pointed weapons. In parts of Southwest Asia, bats
Something in the night As a deadly fungal disease ravages bat populations, researchers work to find out what the world stands to lose. By Jack Evans jackevan@indiana.edu | @JackHEvans
PHOTOS BY NOBLE GUYON | IDS
Top Indiana State University doctoral students Timothy Divoll, left, and Lizz Beilke place a radio transmitter on the back of an Indiana Bat on June 21 at the MorganMonroe State Forest. Because so little is known about bats, it is important that someone collects information about their diet and movements, Divoll said. Bottom Indiana State University doctoral student Lizz Beilke holds an Indiana Bat after untangling the bat from a net on June 21 at the Morgan-Monroe State Forest. The group measured the bat’s wingspan, took hair and guano samples, and attached a radio transmitter to its back.
have long been regarded as omens of bad luck or death. Researchers and journalists in the last century have documented those fears turning into violence. In his book “The Secret Lives of Bats,” preeminent bat researcher and conservationist Merlin Tuttle remembered seeing people in Venezuela use flamethrowers to kill vampire bats. Human disturbance, including cave vandalism, led to the listing of the Indiana bat as endangered in the late 1960s, a designation it retained even before white nose syndrome appeared. Now, the species hibernates in just a handful of caves across the Midwest. Even biology and environmental science largely ignored bats until recently, said Timothy Divoll, who
White nose attacks bats at their most vulnerable. When bats hibernate, they reserve energy so they can survive without eating until spring. Bats with white nose use far more energy during hibernation — as much as twice the amount that healthy bats use, according to a 2015 study. The vampiric disease doesn’t just kill bats. It sucks the life from them. By 2015, the most recent year with data available from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the population of Indiana bats had declined by 27 percent over four years in their namesake state. In the same year, the northern long-eared bat, whose range stretches from the east coast to Louisiana, the Dakotas and Canada, became the first species to be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act due to white nose. Some parts of the country have seen 90 to 100 percent mortality rates. Lizz Beilke, a doctoral student and one of Divoll’s colleagues at ISU, spent last year’s research season in the Great Smoky Mountains along the Tennessee-North Carolina border. White nose reached there in 2009. By last year, she said, both Indiana bats and northern long-eared bats were functionally extinct there. They may have still existed in small numbers, but they could no longer fulfill their roles in their ecosystems. They were as good as gone. * * *
has researched bats in Southern Indiana’s forests over the past few summers. The Indiana State University doctoral student’s research on bat diets illustrates the extent of the ambivalence. Though bats in North America have generally been known to eat bugs, Divoll is still cataloging which bugs and understanding what that might mean for their ecosystems. “People weren’t really intensely studying these species before the decline,” Divoll said. Then, white nose came. Researchers first found it in Feb. 2006 in upstate New York. By 2011, it showed up in Indiana. According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Services, confirmed or suspected cases have surfaced in 33 states and five Canadian provinces.
It is a cool May night, the first of the research season, when the team drives down Goose Creek Road armed with latex and Lysol and long black nets. Divoll parks the truck at the head of a clearing off the road. They make camp in the clearing and take a footpath to a small, still pond with a glassy black surface. Insects flit through the air above it, their bodies made tiny stars by the golden hour light. The researchers — Divoll, Beilke, Friend and Lauren Hendrickson — unfurl their mist nets, meter after meter of fine polyester. Even in daylight, against the black surface of the pond, the netting becomes hard to see. When night falls, it disappears entirely. The researchers hem in one end SEE BATS, PAGE 5
Final night of Lotus Festival promotes inclusion, unity By Kathryn Jankowski kjankows@umail.iu.edu | @KathrynJanko56
People of all ages crowded the streets of downtown Bloomington on a cool September evening, exploring the variety of world cultures displayed by the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival. Saturday was the festival's final night, and its festivities included many concerts and a parade. The Lotus Festival is known for its variety of musical performances, but the Arts Village on Sixth Street offered many other types of activities. Emily Hutchison, 35, from Indianapolis, said she enjoyed the hoola hooping area with her mom, dad, sister and niece. “We came all the way down for Lotus and the variety of music has been awesome,” Hutchison said. Hutchison said she would be attending the festival parade, which took place at 8 p.m. down Washington Street. Anyone could participate in the parade and many people attended, waving multicolored flags. Maison Cole and Adam Sowder, two parade participants, said they enjoyed the experience. “There were a lot of colors and sounds happening during the parade,” Sowder said. “And now we are going to fill our stomachs with some good curry tacos at the Food Truck Village.” Cole said the diversity of cul-
ANDREW WILLIAMS | IDS
The Raya Brass Band helps lead the Festival Parade from Seventh and Washington streets to the Buskirk Chumley Theater. Festival attendees were able to join the Brooklyn-based, Balkan brass band with an assortment of colored flags.
tures she saw while walking the streets was refreshing. “It was amazing,” Cole said. “We have lived here our whole lives, and this was a very good representation of Bloomington.” Further down the Arts Village,
there was a small tent where Cameron Davis, a Lotus volunteer and IU graduate student, helped people in the Light Lab. The lab was hosted by the students in the Human Computer Interaction Design program at IU and it gave festival goers the
opportunity to use LED lights to draw pictures. “We started experimenting at the beginning of the summer,” Davis said. “I approached Lotus, and they were really on board with the idea.”
Throughout the festival, many store fronts opened their doors to festival goers, including Gather, located off of Walnut Street. Store owner Talia Halliday said the Gather storefront was the host to a group of drummers Friday night. “This is our first Lotus out here on the square,” Halliday said. “Some drummers came in and asked if they could play out front and it just evolved into something.” At the Ivy Tech Community College tent, Raya Brass Band played for the second night in a row. The band is from New York, and they played a variety of Balkan music, New Orleans brass and punk. One volunteer, Robin Lasek, said she watched the band Friday night when its members went into the crowd and danced with the audience. “That band was instrumental in kicking off this festival,” Lasek said. “The fact that they came into the crowd and just captured everyone, the response was amazing and overwhelming. I had tears in my eyes.” While the Raya Brass Band played on Fourth Street, Meklit, an ethio jazz group took the stage at SEE LOTUS, PAGE 5 Lotus coverage, page 9 See more photos and recaps of the Lotus World Music and Arts festival.