Foo Cecily F, Bennett Victoria J, Hale Amanda M, Korstian Jennifer M, Schildt Alison J, Williams Dean A
Department of Biology, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, United States of America.
School of Geology, Energy & the Environment, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, United States of America.
PeerJ. 2017 Nov 3;5:e3985. doi: 10.7717/peerj.3985. eCollection 2017.
Although the ultimate causes of high bat fatalities at wind farms are not well understood, several lines of evidence suggest that bats are attracted to wind turbines. One hypothesis is that bats would be attracted to turbines as a foraging resource if the insects that bats prey upon are commonly present on and around the turbine towers. To investigate the role that foraging activity may play in bat fatalities, we conducted a series of surveys at a wind farm in the southern Great Plains of the US from 2011-2016. From acoustic monitoring we recorded foraging activity, including feeding buzzes indicative of prey capture, in the immediate vicinity of turbine towers from all six bat species known to be present at this site. From insect surveys we found Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Orthoptera in consistently high proportions over several years suggesting that food resources for bats were consistently available at wind turbines. We used DNA barcoding techniques to assess bat diet composition of (1) stomach contents from 47 eastern red bat () and 24 hoary bat () carcasses collected in fatality searches, and (2) fecal pellets from 23 eastern red bats that were found on turbine towers, transformers, and tower doors. We found that the majority of the eastern red bat and hoary bat stomachs, the two bat species most commonly found in fatality searches at this site, were full or partially full, indicating that the bats were likely killed while foraging. Although Lepidoptera and Orthoptera dominated the diets of these two bat species, both consumed a range of prey items with individual bats having from one to six insect species in their stomachs at the time of death. The prey items identified from eastern red bat fecal pellets showed similar results. A comparison of the turbine insect community to the diet analysis results revealed that the most abundant insects at wind turbines, including terrestrial insects such as crickets and several important crop pests, were also commonly eaten by eastern red and hoary bats. Collectively, these findings suggest that bats are actively foraging around wind turbines and that measures to minimize bat fatalities should be broadly implemented at wind facilities.
尽管风力发电场中蝙蝠高死亡率的最终原因尚未完全明确，但有几条证据表明蝙蝠会被风力涡轮机吸引。一种假设是，如果蝙蝠捕食的昆虫通常出现在涡轮机塔架及其周围，那么蝙蝠可能会将涡轮机作为觅食资源而被吸引。为了调查觅食活动在蝙蝠死亡中可能扮演的角色，我们于2011年至2016年在美国大平原南部的一个风力发电场进行了一系列调查。通过声学监测，我们记录了涡轮机塔架附近已知出现在该地点的所有六种蝙蝠的觅食活动，包括表明捕获猎物的捕食嗡嗡声。通过昆虫调查，我们发现鳞翅目、鞘翅目和直翅目昆虫在几年中一直保持着很高的比例，这表明风力涡轮机周围一直有蝙蝠的食物资源。我们使用DNA条形码技术评估蝙蝠的饮食组成：（1）在死亡搜索中收集的47只东部红蝙蝠（）和24只霜蝠（）尸体的胃内容物；（2）在涡轮机塔架、变压器和塔门上发现的23只东部红蝙蝠的粪便颗粒。我们发现，在该地点死亡搜索中最常见的两种蝙蝠——东部红蝙蝠和霜蝠的大多数胃都是满的或部分满的，这表明这些蝙蝠很可能是在觅食时死亡的。尽管鳞翅目和直翅目昆虫在这两种蝙蝠的饮食中占主导地位，但两者都食用了一系列猎物，死亡时个体蝙蝠胃中有一到六种昆虫。从东部红蝙蝠粪便颗粒中鉴定出的猎物也显示出类似的结果。将涡轮机昆虫群落与饮食分析结果进行比较发现，风力涡轮机中最丰富的昆虫，包括蟋蟀等陆生昆虫和几种重要的农作物害虫，也是东部红蝙蝠和霜蝠经常食用的。总体而言，这些发现表明蝙蝠在风力涡轮机周围积极觅食，并且应在风力设施中广泛采取措施以尽量减少蝙蝠死亡。
