David Hayman and Reed Hranac present at the International Bat Research Conference
Dr David Hayman and PhD student Reed Hranac recently presented at the International Bat Research Conference in Umhlanga, Durban. With warm weather and beautiful scenery (as depicted in some of the photos) it was clearly an ideal location for a conference. The conference brings together researchers from around the world to present their research on a range of topics including disease ecology, bats and pollution, reproduction, bat hunting, and the biology of sensory adaptations.
Dr Hayman gave two presentations: "Can survival analyses detect hunting pressure in a highly connected species? Lessons from Straw-coloured fruit bats" [in the hunting session], "Maternal antibody and the persistence of Lagos bat virus in populations of the African Straw-coloured fruit bat" [in the disease ecology session]. In addition, Dr Hayman presented to the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling & Analysis (SACEMA) on predicting undiscovered filovirus reservoirs and patterns of disease emergence.
Reed Hranac presented some of the work from his PhD. His talk was titled ":Modeling the Impact of White-Nose Syndrome on Two Western Myotis Bats" [in the disease ecology session].
Reed's PhD is focused on modelling infectious diseases of wildlife, specifically bats and is broken into two parts. The first involves spatial-temporal modelling of Filoviruses in central and western Africa to investigate potential sylvatic viral maintenance within the Chiropteran community. The other half of his project concerns the White-nose Syndrome outbreak among bats in North America and uses models to evaluate the metabolic consequences of fungal infection during hibernation.
Photo 1: Lighthouse in Umhlanga, Durban
Photo 2: South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling & Analysis (SACEMA), Stellenbosch University
Photo 3: Botanical gardens in Durban
Photo 4: Beach in Durban