OU studying if stressed bats lead to more shedding of viruses, like coronavirus.

NORMAN, Okla. (KFOR) — When stressed, bats can shed different pathogens like the coronavirus.

While it’s not necessarily the same thing we saw in the U.S. during the pandemic, research at the University of Oklahoma is studying fruit bats in Central America to look into that process and how it works to see if the stress makes them shed more viruses than a non-stressed bat.

"We're trying to figure out, you know, when they get sick and if there is a human risk, how to mitigate it,” said Dr. Daniel Becker, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences at the university.

It’s a fairly simple goal for Becker as they prepare to research fruit bats in Belize. Soon, thanks to funding from the Human Frontier Science Program, he’ll have a chance to reach it.

"We've had funding from them to sort of work on a couple of different projects,” Becker said.

Bats can be stressed during pregnancy, changes in habitat, or migration time. Their plan is to find out if that makes them shed more viruses.

"It disrupts this kind of nice balance between the bat and the virus and that causes them to start, you know, becoming infectious and sort of spread these viruses out,” Becker said.

Becker said the viruses don’t affect the bats since they’ve evolved with them over millions of years. However, they could impact us, like the one they’re looking into, which is coronavirus. It’s not exactly like the one you’re thinking of though.

"It's a different genus of virus,” Becker said. “So, it's kind of like humans versus chimps or something."

They’ve also studied the same idea on bats in northwest Oklahoma that migrate into Texas and Mexico. He added there’s no reason to harm them though, as several animals shed viruses, including us. The research is just preventative.

"Reducing that sort of opportunity for the viruses to jump, you know, from bats to humans or bats to something else,” Becker said.