Data from: Conservation implications of ameliorating survival of little brown bats with White-Nose Syndrome

Management of wildlife populations impacted by novel threats is often
challenged by a lack of data on temporal changes in demographic response.
Populations may suffer rapid declines from the introduction of new
stressors, but how demography changes over time is critical to determining
long-term outcomes for populations. White-nose syndrome (WNS), an
infectious disease of hibernating bats, has caused massive and rapid
population declines in several hibernating species of bats in North
America since the disease was first observed on the continent in 2006.
Estimating annual survival rates and demographic trends among remnant
colonies of hibernating bats that experienced mass mortality from WNS is
needed to determine long-term population viability of species impacted by
this disease. Using mark–recapture data on infected little brown bats
(Myotis lucifugus), we estimated the first apparent annual survival rates
for four years following WNS detection at a site. We found strong support
for an increasing trend in annual survival, which improved from 0.68 (95%
CI = 0.44–0.85) to 0.75 (95% CI = 0.51–0.89) for males and 0.65 (95% CI =
0.44–0.81) to 0.70 (95% CI = 0.50–0.84) for females. These results suggest
that stabilization at remnant colonies after mass mortality from WNS may
be due to improved survival and not from immigration from other areas.
Despite ameliorating survival, our stochastic matrix projection model
predicts continued declines for little brown bat populations (λ = 0.95),
raising concern for the regional persistence of this species. We conducted
a vital rate sensitivity analysis and determined that adult and juvenile
survival, as opposed to fecundity, are the demographic parameters most
important to target to maximize recovery potential of little brown bat
populations in areas impacted by WNS.