Vertebrate fauna in caves of eastern Tennessee within the Appalachians karst region, USA

This decade-long study bioinventoried 56 caves in 15 counties and begins to address knowledge gaps in distributions and cave use by vertebrates in the Valley and Ridge and adjacent Blue Ridge Mountains of eastern Tennessee within the Appalachians karst region. In addition, the authors conducted a thorough review of the literature and museum databases for additional species-occurrence records in those provinces of eastern Tennessee. From these sources, they present an annotated list of 54 vertebrate taxa, including 8 fishes, 19 amphibians (8 anurans and 11 salamanders), 6 reptiles, 3 birds, and 18 mammals. Three species are included on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, while six species are at risk of extinction based on NatureServe conservation rank criteria. The bioinventories documented five bat species in 39 caves, including new records of the federally endangered Gray Bat (Myotis grisescens). They observed visible evidence of whitenose syndrome caused by the fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans at four caves in Blount, Roane, and Union counties.