Russo Danilo, Ancillotto Leonardo
1Wildlife Research Unit, Laboratorio di Ecologia Applicata, Sezione di Biologia e Protezione dei Sistemi Agrari e Forestali, Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Università 100, Portici, Napoli, I-80055 Italy.
2School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Mamm Biol. 2015;80(3):205-212. doi: 10.1016/j.mambio.2014.10.003. Epub 2014 Oct 23.
In this article we review the current knowledge of the effects of urban expansion on bats and assess the potential of these mammals as bioindicators of urbanization. The response of bats to this process is highly species-specific: some species tolerate urban habitat or are even favoured by its roosting or foraging opportunities, others are affected by the loss or fragmentation of key natural habitat, or by the physical and chemical pollution associated with urbanization. Species responses generally translate into altered community structures, with few markedly dominating species. We propose different hypothetical models of bat fitness along an urbanization gradient and discuss why bat population density may not be an effective fitness proxy to assess the reactions of these mammals to urban expansion. We also suggest that urban habitat may act as an ecological trap even for apparently synurbic species. Overall, bat sensitivity to urbanization makes these mammals promising candidates to track the effects of this process of land use change on the biota, but more studies, specifically tailored to explore this role, are needed.
在本文中，我们回顾了当前关于城市扩张对蝙蝠影响的知识，并评估了这些哺乳动物作为城市化生物指标的潜力。蝙蝠对这一过程的反应具有高度的物种特异性：一些物种能够容忍城市栖息地，甚至因其栖息或觅食机会而受到青睐，另一些物种则受到关键自然栖息地丧失或破碎化的影响，或受到与城市化相关的物理和化学污染的影响。物种反应通常会导致群落结构改变，很少有明显占主导地位的物种。我们提出了不同的关于蝙蝠适应度沿城市化梯度变化的假设模型，并讨论了为什么蝙蝠种群密度可能不是评估这些哺乳动物对城市扩张反应的有效适应度指标。我们还指出，即使对于明显适应城市环境的物种，城市栖息地也可能充当生态陷阱。总体而言，蝙蝠对城市化的敏感性使这些哺乳动物成为追踪土地利用变化这一过程对生物群影响的有潜力的候选者，但需要更多专门针对探索这一作用的研究。
