Host traits and environment interact to drive persistence of bat populations impacted by white-nose syndrome

Emerging infectious diseases have resulted in severe population declines
across diverse taxa. In some instances, despite attributes associated with
high extinction risk, disease emergence and host declines are followed by
host stabilization for unknown reasons. While host, pathogen, and the
environment are recognized as important factors that interact to determine
host-pathogen coexistence, they are often considered independently. Here,
we use a translocation experiment to disentangle the role of host traits
and environmental conditions in driving the persistence of remnant bat
populations a decade after they declined 70-99% due to white-nose syndrome
and subsequently stabilized. While survival was significantly higher than
during the initial epidemic within all sites, protection from severe
disease only existed within a narrow environmental space, suggesting host
traits conducive to surviving disease are highly environmentally
dependent. Ultimately, population persistence following pathogen invasion
is the product of host-pathogen interactions that vary across a patchwork
of environments.