Foraging Strategies Determine the Effect of Traffic Noise on Bats

Bonsen, Gavin; Law, Bradley; Ramp, Daniel

doi:10.3161/15081109acc2015.17.2.010

Cited by 20 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Bats are at increased risk of collisions with vehicles where linear vegetation bisects freeways [ 24 , 26 ]. Furthermore, traffic noise can restrict the ability of bats to hear prey and thus reduce their foraging efficiency [ 28 , 29 , 62 ]. However, as the area affected by traffic noise is likely to occur in close proximity to the freeway, it is unclear what could be causing the extended road-effect zone (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…australis , tend to fly fast and high and can forage in open areas [ 35 , 64 ]. As such, they may not be influenced by disturbances from the road, such as traffic noise [ 62 , 65 ], like the other species which are slower, more manoeuvrable species that typically forage around trees [ 35 ]. It may also be possible that the freeway-verge in our study area can provide resources such as availability of insects [ 63 ], in habitat where there is lower competition from other bats, creating an attractive foraging resource.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…noise can restrict the ability of bats to hear prey and thus reduce their foraging efficiency [28,29,62]. However, as the area affected by traffic noise is likely to occur in close proximity to the freeway, it is unclear what could be causing the extended road-effect zone (i.e.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, the species that appear unaffected by the freeway, O ridei, O. planiceps and A. australis, tend to fly fast and high and can forage in open areas [35,64]. As such, they may not be influenced by disturbances from the road, such as traffic noise [62,65], like the other species which are slower, more manoeuvrable species that typically forage around https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247400.g003…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

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Insectivorous bats are less active near freeways

et al. 2021

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Traffic disturbances (i.e. pollution, light, noise, and vibrations) often extend into the area surrounding a road creating a ‘road-effect zone’. Habitat within the road-effect zone is degraded or, in severe cases, completely unsuitable for wildlife, resulting in indirect habitat loss. This can have a disproportionate impact on wildlife in highly modified landscapes, where remaining habitat is scarce or occurs predominantly along roadside reserves. In this study, we investigated the road-effect zone for insectivorous bats in highly cleared agricultural landscapes by quantifying the change in call activity with proximity to three major freeways. The activity of seven out of 10 species of bat significantly decreased with proximity to the freeway. We defined the road-effect zone to be the proximity at which call activity declined by at least 20% relative to the maximum detected activity. The overall road-effect zone for bats in this region was 307 m, varying between 123 and 890 m for individual species. Given that this road-effect zone exceeds the typical width of the roadside verges (<50 m), it is possible that much of the vegetation adjacent to freeways in this and similar landscapes provides low-quality habitat for bats. Without accounting for the road-effect zone, the amount of habitat lost or degraded due to roads is underestimated, potentially resulting in the loss of wildlife, ecosystem services and key ecosystem processes (e.g. predator-prey or plant-pollinator interactions) from the landscape. We suggest all future environmental impact assessments include quantifying the road-effect zone for sensitive wildlife, in order to best plan and mitigate the impact of roads on the environment. Mitigating the effects of new and existing roads on wildlife is essential to ensure enough high-quality habitat persists to maintain wildlife populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

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Insectivorous bats are less active near freeways

et al. 2021

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“…It is known that some bats actively avoid roads with consistent vehicular traffic (Zurcher, Sparks, & Bennett, 2010;Bennett & Zurcher, 2013;Fensome & Mathews, 2016), and thus, a cost is that these species may be missed when conducting mobile surveys. Additionally, vehicles may interfere with the recording of bats due to the ultrasonic noise produced by cars (Schaub, Ostwald, & Siemers, 2008;Siemers & Schaub, 2011) or directly affect individual bats by deterring foraging due to vehicle-produced noise or light (Bonsen, Law, & Ramp, 2015;Fensome & Mathews, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

Timing and technique impact the effectiveness of road‐based, mobile acoustic surveys of bats

D’Acunto

Pauli

Moy

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

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Mobile acoustic surveys are a common method of surveying bat communities. However, there is a paucity of empirical studies exploring different methods for conducting mobile road surveys of bats. During 2013, we conducted acoustic mobile surveys on three routes in north‐central Indiana, U.S.A., using (1) a standard road survey, (2) a road survey where the vehicle stopped for 1 min at every half mile of the survey route (called a “start‐stop method”), and (3) a road survey with an individual using a bicycle. Linear mixed models with multiple comparison procedures revealed that when all bat passes were analyzed, using a bike to conduct mobile surveys detected significantly more bat passes per unit time compared to other methods. However, incorporating genus‐level comparisons revealed no advantage to using a bike over vehicle‐based methods. We also found that survey method had a significant effect when analyses were limited to those bat passes that could be identified to genus, with the start–stop method generally detecting more identifiable passes than the standard protocol or bike survey. Additionally, we found that significantly more identifiable bat passes (particularly those of the Eptesicus and Lasiurus genera) were detected in surveys conducted immediately following sunset. As governing agencies, particularly in North America, implement vehicle‐based bat monitoring programs, it is important for researchers to understand how variations on protocols influence the inference that can be gained from different monitoring schemes.

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