The importance of peripheral populations in the face of novel environmental change

Anthropogenically driven environmental change has imposed substantial threats on biodiversity, including the emergence of infectious diseases that have resulted in declines of wildlife globally. In response to pathogen invasion, maintaining diversity within host populations across heterogenous environments is essential to facilitating species persistence. White-nose syndrome is an emerging fungal pathogen that has caused mass mortalities of hibernating bats across North America. However, in the Northeast, peripheral island populations of the Endangered northern myotis (Myotis septentrionalis) appear to be persisting despite infection while mainland populations in the core of the species range have experienced sharp declines. Thus, this study investigated host and environmental factors that may contribute to divergent population responses. We compared patterns of pathogen exposure and infection intensity between populations and documented the environmental conditions and host activity pa..., , , # The importance of peripheral populations in the face of novel environmental change

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ffbg79d4n](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ffbg79d4n)

## Description of the data and file structure

We conducted a comparative study of northern myotis populations in the United States to explore the mechanisms that may be supporting species survival following the arrival of white-nose syndrome (WNS). Here, the core of the species range is represented by mainland populations and the periphery is represented by the coastal island populations of Long Island, New York, and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. First, we presented mainland colony declines from hibernacula across the species range and we compared capture probabilities of island and mainland bats to assess the severity of population decline in post-WNS years. We quantified seasonal patterns of *Pseudogymnoascus destructans* prevalence and infection intensity between the islands and mainland. We compar...