Influence of landscape and time of year on bat-wind turbines collision risks

Roemer, Charlotte; Bas, Yves; Disca, Thierry; Coulon, Aurélie

doi:10.1007/s10980-019-00927-3

Cited by 16 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(64 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“… 118 Research should pay special attention to species foraging at medium heights, such as Eptesicus nilssonii , as they might face greater risk of collision than high-flying species when turbines are located in forests. 119 Activity of low- and medium-height flying species is dependent on the proximity to woodland, unlike high-flying species. 119 Evidence already exists that Eptesicus nilssonii spends a significant amount of time at a height in southern Finland, 64 which puts this species at collision risk.…”

Section: Topics In Need Of Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 119 Activity of low- and medium-height flying species is dependent on the proximity to woodland, unlike high-flying species. 119 Evidence already exists that Eptesicus nilssonii spends a significant amount of time at a height in southern Finland, 64 which puts this species at collision risk. 37 More surveys on activity at canopy and rotor height are required for the boreal region.…”

Section: Topics In Need Of Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Bats and Wind Farms: The Role and Importance of the Baltic Sea Countries in the European Context of Power Transition and Biodiversity Conservation

Gaultier

Blomberg

Ijäs

et al. 2020

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although labeled as environmentally friendly, wind power can have negative impacts on the environment, such as habitat destruction or wildlife fatalities. Considering the distribution and migratory characteristics of European bats, the negative effects of wind power should be addressed on an appropriate scale. This review summarizes the current state of knowledge on interactions between wind farms and bats in Europe, and compares it with the situation in the countries of the European boreal biogeographic region. We analyzed data from papers published in international and national scientific journals, focusing on studies conducted in Europe. The issue of the impacts wind power has on bats is clearly overlooked in most of the countries of the European boreal region, with low volumes of research available on the topic. This is probably due to fewer wind farms in the area, making this recent issue a less-prioritized topic. However, the Baltic Sea, and the countries surrounding it, are of extreme importance with regards to bat migration, especially for the Pipistrellus nathusii . Therefore, more research on wind power and bats is needed in this region, as well as more cooperation between all the stakeholders.

show abstract

Section: Topics In Need Of Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Topics In Need Of Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bats and Wind Farms: The Role and Importance of the Baltic Sea Countries in the European Context of Power Transition and Biodiversity Conservation

Gaultier

Blomberg

Ijäs

et al. 2020

Environ. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As planar microphone arrays have a rather limited field of view, this type of configuration can hardly be used to analyze free-roaming animals. These planar arrays can be used to analyze the behavior of vocalizing animals at key points of interest such as the flight height of bats near wind turbines 38 or the position and direction of passing migratory birds 39 . However, due to their spatially constrained nature they are not suited to study free-roaming animals in larger habitats.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another application of BATLoc arrays could also be bat monitoring near wind turbines. Roemer et al 38 , 52 studied the vertical partitioning of bats 52 and the effects of landscape characteristics on bat collisions with turbines 38 . They used a measurement setup of two microphones to study the vertical partitioning of free-flying bats.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bio-acoustic tracking and localization using heterogeneous, scalable microphone arrays

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Microphone arrays are an essential tool in the field of bioacoustics as they provide a non-intrusive way to study animal vocalizations and monitor their movement and behavior. Microphone arrays can be used for passive localization and tracking of sound sources while analyzing beamforming or spatial filtering of the emitted sound. Studying free roaming animals usually requires setting up equipment over large areas and attaching a tracking device to the animal which may alter their behavior. However, monitoring vocalizing animals through arrays of microphones, spatially distributed over their habitat has the advantage that unrestricted/unmanipulated animals can be observed. Important insights have been achieved through the use of microphone arrays, such as the convergent acoustic field of view in echolocating bats or context-dependent functions of avian duets. Here we show the development and application of large flexible microphone arrays that can be used to localize and track any vocalizing animal and study their bio-acoustic behavior. In a first experiment with hunting pallid bats the acoustic data acquired from a dense array with 64 microphones revealed details of the bats’ echolocation beam in previously unseen resolution. We also demonstrate the flexibility of the proposed microphone array system in a second experiment, where we used a different array architecture allowing to simultaneously localize several species of vocalizing songbirds in a radius of 75 m. Our technology makes it possible to do longer measurement campaigns over larger areas studying changing habitats and providing new insights for habitat conservation. The flexible nature of the technology also makes it possible to create dense microphone arrays that can enhance our understanding in various fields of bioacoustics and can help to tackle the analytics of complex behaviors of vocalizing animals.

show abstract

“…It highlights the need for long-term (several months) surveys at nacelle level. Though bat behaviour might change when the wind turbines are erected [46][47][48][49], surveys at nacelle height are probably more correct than those made only at ground level.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity Pattern and Correlation between Bat and Insect Abundance at Wind Turbines in South Sweden

Jong

Millon²,

Håstad

et al. 2021

Animals

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present data on species composition and activity of bats during two years at three different wind- turbines, located in south Sweden, both at the base and nacelle height. To test the hypothesis that bats are attracted to wind turbines because of feeding opportunities, insects were sampled at nacelle height at one wind turbine using a suction trap, simultaneously as bat activity were measured. At this wind turbine, we also compared two different technical systems for ultrasound recordings and collect meteorological data. The variation in bat activity was high between nights and between wind turbines. In addition to the expected open-air foraging species (Pipistrellus, Nyctalus, Vespertilio and Eptesicus), some individuals of unexpected species (Myotis, Barbastella, and Plecotus) were found at nacelle height. There was a weak but significant positive relation between bat activity and insect abundance, so the hypothesis could not be rejected, suggesting there might be other factors than insect abundance explaining the frequency of bat visits at the nacelle. We found a strong correlation between bat passes and weather conditions. A reasonable way to mitigate collisions is with stop-regulation. However, this study highlights some of the problems with defining the limits for stop-regulation based on weather conditions.

show abstract

Influence of landscape and time of year on bat-wind turbines collision risks

Abstract: for their important contributions to equipment design and installation, data collection and 2 acoustic analysis. We also thank one anonymous reviewer for commenting on the manuscript and Richard Iodice for the English proofreading.

Cited by 16 publications

References 50 publications

Bats and Wind Farms: The Role and Importance of the Baltic Sea Countries in the European Context of Power Transition and Biodiversity Conservation

Bats and Wind Farms: The Role and Importance of the Baltic Sea Countries in the European Context of Power Transition and Biodiversity Conservation

Bio-acoustic tracking and localization using heterogeneous, scalable microphone arrays

Activity Pattern and Correlation between Bat and Insect Abundance at Wind Turbines in South Sweden

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About