Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Str. 17, 10315, Berlin, Germany.
Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Str. 17, 10315, Berlin, Germany.
Environ Pollut. 2022 Mar 15;297:118785. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2021.118785. Epub 2021 Dec 31.
Global change, including urbanisation, threatens many of the >1400 bat species. Nevertheless, certain areas within highly urbanised cities may be suitable to harbour bat populations. Thus, managing urban habitats could contribute to bat conservation. Here, we wanted to establish evidence-based recommendations on how to improve urban spaces for the protection of bats. In a team effort with >200 citizen scientists, we recorded bat vocalisations up to six times over the course of 2 years at each of 600 predefined sites in the Berlin metropolitan area. For each species we identified the preferred and non-preferred landscape features. Our results show that artificial light at night (ALAN) had a negative impact on all species. For soprano pipistrelles and mouse-eared bats ALAN had the largest effect sizes among all environmental predictors. Canopy cover and open water were especially important for bat species that forage along vegetation edges and for trawling bats, respectively. Occurrence probability of species foraging in open space decreased with increasing distance to water bodies. On a larger scale, impervious surfaces tended to have positive effects on some species that are specialised on foraging along edge structures. Our study constitutes an important contribution to the growing body of literature showing that despite the many negative impacts of urbanisation on wildlife, urban environments can harbour bat populations if certain conditions are met, such as access to vegetation and water bodies and low levels of ALAN. Our findings are of high relevance for urban planners and conservationists, as they allow inferences on how to manage urban spaces in a bat-friendly way. We recommend limiting ALAN to the minimum necessary and maintaining and creating uninterrupted vegetated corridors between areas with high levels of canopy cover and water bodies, in which ALAN should be entirely avoided.
全球变化，包括城市化，威胁着 1400 多种蝙蝠物种。然而，高度城市化的城市中的某些区域可能适合容纳蝙蝠种群。因此，管理城市栖息地可以为蝙蝠保护做出贡献。在这里，我们希望为如何改善城市空间以保护蝙蝠提出基于证据的建议。在与 200 多名公民科学家的团队合作中，我们在柏林大都市区的 600 个预先确定的地点，每两年六次记录蝙蝠的发声。对于每种物种，我们确定了首选和非首选的景观特征。我们的研究结果表明，夜间人工光（ALAN）对所有物种都有负面影响。对于高音短尾蝠和小耳蝙蝠来说，ALAN 在所有环境预测因子中具有最大的效应大小。冠层覆盖和开阔水域对在植被边缘觅食的蝙蝠物种和拖网蝙蝠特别重要。在更大的尺度上，不透水表面往往对一些专门在边缘结构上觅食的物种有积极的影响。我们的研究对越来越多的文献做出了重要贡献，这些文献表明，尽管城市化对野生动物有许多负面影响，但如果满足某些条件，如植被和水体的可达性以及低水平的 ALAN，城市环境仍然可以容纳蝙蝠种群。我们的研究结果对城市规划者和保护主义者具有高度的相关性，因为它们可以推断出如何以对蝙蝠友好的方式管理城市空间。我们建议将 ALAN 限制在最低必要水平，并维护和创建在高树冠覆盖和水体之间没有中断的植被走廊，在这些区域内应完全避免 ALAN。
