Bat richness and activity in heterogeneous landscapes: guild-specific and scale-dependent?

Mendes, Eduardo; Fonseca, Carlos; Marques, Sara; Maia, Daniela Maria Silva; Pereira, María João Ramos

doi:10.1007/s10980-016-0444-0

Cited by 53 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 97 publications

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“…Our study had some limitations and potential shortcomings, but we believe that they did not affect our key results in any significant way. First, although our sample size was relatively small, the number of transects surveyed was comparable to that of similar studies (e.g., Davy, Russo, & Fenton, ; Mendes, Fonseca, Marques, Maia, & Ramos Pereira, ; Rainho, ; Salvarina et al., ; Vaughan et al., ), and it was sufficient to detect 19 of the 25 bat species occurring in continental Portugal. Therefore, it is unlikely that small sample sizes were responsible for the strong associations observed with water bodies and riparian habitats, or the marked variations in the spatial distribution of species richness and bat activity.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Following the water? Landscape‐scale temporal changes in bat spatial distribution in relation to Mediterranean summer drought

Amorim

Jorge

Beja

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Understanding how the spatial distribution of ecological resources shapes species’ diversity and abundance in human‐modified landscapes is a central theme in conservation biology. However, studies often disregard that such patterns may vary over time, thereby potentially missing critical environmental constraints to species persistence. This may be particularly important in highly mobile species such as bats, which are able to track temporal variations in spatial resource distribution. Here we test the hypothesis that bats in Mediterranean landscapes are strongly affected by the progressive reduction in water availability during the seasonal summer drought. We analyzed the effects of landscape composition and structure on bat diversity and activity, during pregnancy, lactation, and postlactation periods, and identified the most influential variables within and across periods. Water bodies showed the strongest positive effect on bats, followed by riparian habitats and areas with steeper (>30%) slopes. However, while during pregnancy, there were only small landscape effects, these increased during lactation and postlactation, highlighting a progressively stronger association with water habitats during the summer drought. The spatial projection of habitat models showed that the landscape distribution of bat diversity and activity hotspots changed markedly over time. During pregnancy, the spatial pattern of hotspot distribution was weakly defined, while during lactation and particularly postlactation, there was a concentration of hotspots along permanently flowing watercourses. Our study highlights that permanently flowing watercourses are critical for bat conservation in Mediterranean landscapes, calling for measures to counteract their ongoing degradation due in particular to climate change, water abstraction and damming. More generally, our study underlines the importance of considering the temporal dimension in habitat selection studies, without which there is the risk of overlooking the importance of habitats that are key for species persistence only at certain times of the year.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Following the water? Landscape‐scale temporal changes in bat spatial distribution in relation to Mediterranean summer drought

Amorim

Jorge

Beja

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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“…, Mendes et al. ). We did not sample in more remote areas of the boreal forest, but our results suggest that little brown bats likely find areas without any human development, and far from rural villages, suitable habitat providing that adequate roosting sites are available.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although some studies have shown landscape-level change to be significant for bats (Threlfall et al 2012a, Bender et al 2015, Gehrt and Chelsvig (2003) also found that localized habitat features were more important than landscape effects in predicting responses to urbanization. The importance of local versus landscape-scale habitat characteristics likely varies depending on bat species and region (Walsh and Harris 1996, Johnson et al 2008, Chambers et al 2016, Mendes et al 2017). We did not sample in more remote areas of the boreal forest, but our results suggest that little brown bats likely find areas without any human development, and far from rural villages, suitable habitat providing that adequate roosting sites are available.…”

Section: Influence Of Landscape-scale Variables On Bat Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Life in a northern town: rural villages in the boreal forest are islands of habitat for an endangered bat

Thomas

Jung

2019

Ecosphere

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Citation: Thomas, J. P., and T. S. Jung. 2019. Life in a northern town: rural villages in the boreal forest are islands of habitat for an endangered bat.Abstract. Urban development is detrimental to many wildlife species; however, endangered little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) may be attracted to human settlements, making them a synurbic species. Buildings likely provide high-quality roosting habitat, which may be a limiting factor in the boreal forest where trees are typically small and potentially unsuitable for hosting large maternity colonies. In the boreal forest, there are relatively few urban developments in a matrix of wilderness and apparently suboptimal natural roosting habitat; thus, we hypothesized that isolated rural villages were islands of summer habitat for little brown bats that may be important for their conservation and recovery. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the relationship between little brown bat activity, foraging rates, and proximity to rural villages. We expected bat activity and foraging rates to increase with proximity to villages, as bats should optimally forage near their roosts to minimize flight costs. We used ultrasonic detectors to passively monitor bat activity near three rural villages in Yukon, Canada, and characterized bat habitat with forest measurements and remotely sensed data. Bat activity increased with proximity to village centers, but foraging activity did not, suggesting that human settlements in the boreal forest were important as roosting rather than foraging habitat. Bat activity was higher near water bodies and areas with relatively high densities of linear features (e.g., roads and transmission lines), perhaps because prey were most abundant near water features and along forest edges. The island phenomenon we observed (i.e., higher bat activity near villages) has also been documented in larger human settlements at lower latitudes, where urban areas provided better roosting habitat than surrounding agricultural matrices. Given that little brown bats were concentrated near rural villages, small human settlements should be a focus of conservation efforts in the boreal forest-particularly the identification and protection of buildings used as maternity colonies. Our study advances knowledge of little brown bat habitat requirements in the boreal forest and identifies habitats that may be important for their recovery.

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“…Proportion of builtup area was measured using circular buffers at four radii (100m, 200m, 500m and 1000m) from the centre of each site, to account for the possibility that different bats respond to the landscape at different scales. Radii larger than 1000m were not investigated to avoid overlap between buffers of adjacent sites [ 40 – 42 ]. Overlapping buffers leads to statistical non-independence of observations as the same predictor values are used multiple times in the data set [ 41 ]).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of aerial insectivorous bats to local and landscape-level features of coffee agroforestry systems in Western Ghats, India

2018

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Shade coffee has shown great promise in providing crucial habitats for biodiversity outside formal protected areas. Insectivorous bats have been understudied in coffee, although they may provide pest control services. We investigated the influence of local and landscape-level features of coffee farms on aerial insectivorous bats in Chikmagalur district in the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, India. Bats were monitored in 20 farm sites using ultrasound detectors, and the response of bat species richness and activity to changes in tree density, proportion of built-up area in the neighborhood, and distance of farm from forest areas quantified. We examined if models built to explain the species richness and activity could also predict them in nine additional sites. We detected nine phonic types/species in the study area. The quantified predictors had no effect on assemblage-level species richness and activity of bats. Responses of edge-space and cluttered-space forager guilds mirrored those of the overall assemblage, but some species vulnerable to forest conversion like Rhinolophus beddomei were detected rarely. Best models explained up to 20% and 15% variation in assemblage-level species richness and activity respectively, and were poor predictors of both response variables. We conclude that coffee farms in our study area offer an important commuting space for insectivorous bats across a gradient of shade management. Further research should include species-specific responses to management decisions for at-risk species and quantification of ecosystem services like natural pest control to inform biodiversity conservation initiatives in the Western Ghats coffee landscapes.

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Bat richness and activity in heterogeneous landscapes: guild-specific and scale-dependent?

Cited by 53 publications

References 97 publications

Following the water? Landscape‐scale temporal changes in bat spatial distribution in relation to Mediterranean summer drought

Following the water? Landscape‐scale temporal changes in bat spatial distribution in relation to Mediterranean summer drought

Life in a northern town: rural villages in the boreal forest are islands of habitat for an endangered bat

Responses of aerial insectivorous bats to local and landscape-level features of coffee agroforestry systems in Western Ghats, India

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