BiBio, Biodiversity and Bioindicators Research Group, Natural Sciences Museum of Granollers, Av. Francesc Macià 51, Granollers, Catalonia, 08402, Spain.
CIBIO-InBIO, Centro de Investigaçaõ em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos, Universidade do Porto, Vairão, 4485-661, Portugal.
Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc. 2023 Oct;98(5):1564-1582. doi: 10.1111/brv.12967. Epub 2023 May 9.
Fighting insect pests is a major challenge for agriculture worldwide, and biological control and integrated pest management constitute well-recognised, cost-effective ways to prevent and overcome this problem. Bats are important arthropod predators globally and, in recent decades, an increasing number of studies have focused on the role of bats as natural enemies of agricultural pests. This review assesses the state of knowledge of the ecosystem services provided by bats as pest consumers at a global level and provides recommendations that may favour the efficiency of pest predation by bats. Through a systematic review, we assess evidence for predation, the top-down effect of bats on crops and the economic value of ecosystem services these mammals provide, describing the different methodological approaches used in a total of 66 reviewed articles and 18 agroecosystem types. We also provide a list of detailed conservation measures and management recommendations found in the scientific literature that may favour the delivery of this important ecosystem service, including actions aimed at restoring bat populations in agroecosystems. The most frequent recommendations include increasing habitat heterogeneity, providing additional roosts, and implementing laws to protect bats and reduce agrochemical use. However, very little evidence is available on the direct consequences of these practices on bat insectivory in farmland. Additionally, through a second in-depth systematic review of scientific articles focused on bat diet and, as part of the ongoing European Cost Action project CA18107, we provide a complete list of 2308 documented interactions between bat species and their respective insect pest prey. These pertain to 81 bat species belonging to 36 different genera preying upon 760 insect pests from 14 orders in agroecosystems and other habitats such as forest or urban areas. The data set is publicly available and updatable.
防治虫害是全球农业面临的主要挑战，生物防治和综合虫害管理是公认的、具有成本效益的方法，可以预防和克服这一问题。蝙蝠是全球重要的节肢动物捕食者，近几十年来，越来越多的研究关注蝙蝠作为农业害虫天敌的作用。本综述评估了蝙蝠作为害虫消费者在全球范围内提供生态系统服务的知识现状，并提出了可能有利于蝙蝠捕食害虫效率的建议。通过系统综述，我们评估了捕食证据、蝙蝠对作物的自上而下影响以及这些哺乳动物提供的生态系统服务的经济价值，描述了在总共 66 篇综述文章和 18 种农业生态系统类型中使用的不同方法。我们还提供了科学文献中发现的详细保护措施和管理建议清单，这些措施和建议可能有利于提供这种重要的生态系统服务，包括旨在恢复农业生态系统中蝙蝠种群的行动。最常见的建议包括增加栖息地异质性、提供额外的栖息地和实施保护蝙蝠和减少农用化学品使用的法律。然而，关于这些做法对农田中蝙蝠食虫的直接影响的证据非常有限。此外，通过对专注于蝙蝠饮食的科学文章进行第二次深入系统综述，并作为正在进行的欧洲成本行动项目 CA18107 的一部分，我们提供了一个完整的列表，其中包含 2308 种蝙蝠物种与其各自的昆虫害虫猎物之间的记录交互。这些涉及 81 种蝙蝠物种，属于 36 个不同属，捕食农业生态系统和其他栖息地（如森林或城市地区）中的 760 种昆虫害虫。该数据集是公开的且可更新的。
