Publications by authors named "Kati Suominen"
Article Synopsis
- Hibernating species, like boreal bats, face the challenge of building fat reserves in autumn as temperatures drop and food becomes scarce.
- This study proposes two hypotheses about how bats use torpor during their prehibernation fattening phase: either to gain weight quickly or to conserve body mass.
- Findings suggest that these bats primarily use torpor to preserve their reserves after achieving most of their necessary winter weight, rather than to facilitate additional mass gain.
Bats and humans have a close relationship based on cohabitation, with bats taking roost in buildings. It has been suggested that bats function as a reservoir of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the COVID-19 disease in humans. A misconception that bats can spread SARS-CoV-2 to humans may have increased negative emotions toward bats and reduced individuals' acceptance of cohabitation with bats during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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- Bats live in forests to sleep and find food, but we wanted to learn more about how they use these forests in colder areas called the boreal zone.
- We used special sound detectors to study bats in different types of forests throughout the summer.
- Our findings show that bats prefer older forests and change where they hang out as the season goes on, highlighting that mature forests are really important for keeping bat populations diverse.
Coronaviruses (CoVs) represent a global public health threat, exemplified by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreaks. Using fecal samples collected from five bat species between 2014 and 2016 in Finland and RT-PCR, RT-qPCR, and NGS, we identified CoVs in 10 of 79 (13%) samples, including two novel bat species-CoV relationships. Phylogenetic analysis revealed and species clustered among previously identified bat and human viruses.
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