A team of UT students hiked in the Great Smoky National Park earlier this month with their lab equipment to capture, weigh, measure, and release bats infected with a fungus that causes white-nose syndrome. Biologists say the fast-spreading disease is the worst wildlife epidemic in recorded history. Doctoral student Riley Bernard is taking the first hard look at how the winter feeding activity of bats that hibernate in the caves of Tennessee could contribute to the spread of the disease.
Read the full story in the Knoxville News Sentinel.