Publications by authors named "Susan M Tsang"

Bats are important reservoirs for alpha- and beta-coronaviruses. Coronaviruses (CoV) have been detected in pteropodid bats from several Southeast Asian countries, but little is known about coronaviruses in the Indonesian archipelago in proportion to its mammalian biodiversity. In this study, we screened pooled faecal samples from the Indonesian colonies of Pteropus vampyrus with unbiased next-generation sequencing.

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Diverse paramyxoviruses have coevolved with their bat hosts, including fruit bats such as flying foxes (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae). Several of these viruses are zoonotic, but the diversity and distribution of are poorly understood. We screened pooled feces samples from three colonies and assayed tissues, rectal swabs, and oral swabs from 95 individuals of 23 pteropodid species sampled at 17 sites across the Indonesian archipelago with a conventional paramyxovirus PCR; all tested negative.

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The family Pteropodidae (Old World fruit bats) comprises $>$200 species distributed across the Old World tropics and subtropics. Most pteropodids feed on fruit, suggesting an early origin of frugivory, although several lineages have shifted to nectar-based diets. Pteropodids are of exceptional conservation concern with $>$50% of species considered threatened, yet the systematics of this group has long been debated, with uncertainty surrounding early splits attributed to an ancient rapid diversification.

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Aim: Islands provide opportunities for isolation and speciation. Many landmasses in the Indo-Australian Archipelago (IAA) are oceanic islands, and founder-event speciation is expected to be the predominant form of speciation of volant taxa on these islands. We studied the biogeographic history of flying foxes, a group with many endemic species and a predilection for islands, to test this hypothesis and infer the biogeographic origin of the group.

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The intense consumption of flying foxes in North Sulawesi, Indonesia has raised hunting pressure and extirpation is expected to spread into other regions. To assess local cultural attitudes towards bats for formulating a targeted conservation campaign, we conducted a survey of consumption practices of bats in 2013 at the eight major markets near Manado. Locals eat flying foxes at least once a month, but the frequency increases tenfold around Christian holidays.

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In many animals, sexual selection has resulted in complex signaling systems in which males advertise aspects of their phenotypic or genetic quality through elaborate ornamentation and display behaviors. Different ornaments might convey different information or be directed at different receivers, but they might also be redundant signals of quality that function reliably at different times (ages) or in different contexts. We explored sexual selection and age- and condition-dependent signaling in the common yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas), a sexually dichromatic warbler with two prominent plumage ornaments--a melanin-based, black facial "mask" and carotenoid-based, UV-yellow "bib.

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