Fungal diseases in wildlife populations have caused massive declines, to the point of regional extinctions, and have become increasingly prolific due to globalization and climate change. White nose syndrome is one such disease caused by a psychrophilic fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (or Pd for short), that has devastated North American bat communities for over a decade. Pd causes visible lesions on bat wings and at more severe stages of disease, causes death through starvation and dehydration.
Some of the earlier questions we have addressed is how the host integumentary lipidome is affected during fungal infections and how do protective lipids on the skin differ between species. If bats possess different natural mechanisms to deter growth this could determine priority species for conservation. While early work showed many similarities between the integumentary lipidome between many bat species, we identified these compounds (primarily glycerophospholipids) will decrease in wing tissue after Pd infection. However, individuals that survive the winter may heal and replace these compounds during a recovery phase. More recently we have shifted focus from the integumentary lipidome and have been determining how storage lipids used for fuel are depleted during the winter infection stage.