A fungal disease killing millions of bats across North America has been connected to higher infant mortality rates in affected areas, according to new research published in the journal Science. Bats eat insects, thus providing free pest control services to many farms. The study found that when bat populations crashed due to the white-nose syndrome fungal disease, farmers compensated by increasing insecticide use by 31%. This change corresponded with a nearly 8% rise in infant mortality rates in affected U.S. counties. “[The author] uses simple statistical methods to the most cutting edge techniques, and the takeaway is the same,” Eli Fenichel, an environmental economist from Yale who was not involved in the study, said in an interview with The New York Times. “Fungal disease killed bats, bats stopped eating enough insects, farmers applied more pesticide to maximize profit and keep food plentiful and cheap, the extra pesticide use led to more babies dying. It is a sobering result.” Eyal Frank, the author of the study from the University of Chicago, told Mongabay that the gradual expansion of white-nose syndrome across the U.S. serves as a natural experiment to study how the loss of bats’ pest control affected agricultural practices and public health. The infant mortality rate, or the number of infant deaths before their first birthday, is often used as an indicator of a society’s overall health. The research found that for every 1% increase in insecticide use, infant mortality increased by 0.25%. This equates to 2.5 infant deaths per…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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