At least three bat species call the Upper Cumberland home, according to a Tennessee Tech Masters Student who studies the animal.
October is Bat Appreciation Month. Zoe Wills said bats function as a keystone species by cycling vital nutrients through the environment.
“They can provide nutrients and energy,” Wills said. “Enrich the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems that they inhabit by kind of replenishing the area with, like, phosphates, sulfates, potassium, ammonium, sodium, magnesium, calcium.”
Wills said the Cumberland Plateau serves as a significant habitat because its sandstone and limestone composition creates a vast network of caves and sinkholes. The region sits at an elevation of approximately 600 meters and features unique valley regions bordered by escarpments.
“The Cumberland is a really cool place,” Wills said. “This limestone gets dissolved by this acidic rain, and so it kind of creates these areas where we have all of these caves and sinkholes.”
Wills said the discovery occurred through the use of eDNA metabarcoding to analyze water samples collected from karst caves. Wills said the data collection confirmed the presence of both the gray bat and the Indiana bat within the local ecosystem.
“I actually found three species of bat, including two endangered species,” Wills said. “I found the gray bat and the Indiana bat in these karst caves using my eDNA sequencing.”
Wills said human activity has contributed to the spread of white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has devastated bat populations across the country. The fungus often transfers between locations when hikers carry it on their footwear from one cave to another.
“That’s actually how white-nose syndrome kind of spread from Asia is because hikers would go from cave to cave and the fungus actually got on their shoe and transferred to all these different caves,” Wills said. “And that’s kind of what’s been wiping out bat species across the United States.”
Wills said residents should avoid entering caves between September and April to protect hibernating populations. Disturbance during this period can cause young bats to fall from cave ceilings.
“If you’re gonna go somewhere, just kind of try to educate yourself on ways that you can kind of protect yourself, protect wildlife, and just try not to mess with them,” Wills said. “You can look and appreciate them without having to mess with them.”
Wills said anyone who encounters a bat inside a home should contact animal services rather than attempting to handle the animal personally due to the risk of rabies.