Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control Implications
ABSTRACT Quantifying ecosystem services provided by mobile species like insectivorous bats remains a challenge, particularly in understanding where and how these services vary over space and time. Bats are known to offer valuable ecosystem services, such as mitigating insect pest damage to crops, re...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Ecology and Evolution |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70819 |
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| author | Brian Lee Samantha Sambado D. Nākoa Farrant Anna Boser Kacie Ring David Hyon Ashley E. Larsen Andrew J. MacDonald |
| author_facet | Brian Lee Samantha Sambado D. Nākoa Farrant Anna Boser Kacie Ring David Hyon Ashley E. Larsen Andrew J. MacDonald |
| author_sort | Brian Lee |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | ABSTRACT Quantifying ecosystem services provided by mobile species like insectivorous bats remains a challenge, particularly in understanding where and how these services vary over space and time. Bats are known to offer valuable ecosystem services, such as mitigating insect pest damage to crops, reducing pesticide use, and reducing nuisance pest populations. However, determining where bats forage is difficult to monitor. In this study, we use a weather‐radar‐based bat‐monitoring algorithm to estimate bat foraging distributions during the peak season of 2019 in California's Northern Central Valley. This region is characterized by valuable agricultural crops and significant populations of both crop and nuisance pests, including midges, moths, mosquitos, and flies. Our results show that bat activity is high but unevenly distributed, with rice fields experiencing significantly elevated activity compared to other land cover types. Specifically, bat activity over rice fields is 1.5 times higher than over any other land cover class and nearly double that of any other agricultural land cover. While irrigated rice fields may provide abundant prey, wetland and water areas showed less than half the bat activity per hectare compared to rice fields. Controlling for land cover type, we found bat activity significantly associated with higher flying insect abundance, indicating that bats forage in areas where crop and nuisance pests are likely to be found. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of radar‐based bat monitoring in identifying where and when bats provide ecosystem services. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-b7a38fc93792496caac0c35af27516c3 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2045-7758 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Ecology and Evolution |
| spelling | doaj-art-b7a38fc93792496caac0c35af27516c32025-01-29T05:08:41ZengWileyEcology and Evolution2045-77582025-01-01151n/an/a10.1002/ece3.70819Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control ImplicationsBrian Lee0Samantha Sambado1D. Nākoa Farrant2Anna Boser3Kacie Ring4David Hyon5Ashley E. Larsen6Andrew J. MacDonald7Bren School of Environmental Science & Management University of California Santa Barbara California USADepartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology University of California Santa Barbara California USABren School of Environmental Science & Management University of California Santa Barbara California USABren School of Environmental Science & Management University of California Santa Barbara California USADepartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology University of California Santa Barbara California USABren School of Environmental Science & Management University of California Santa Barbara California USABren School of Environmental Science & Management University of California Santa Barbara California USABren School of Environmental Science & Management University of California Santa Barbara California USAABSTRACT Quantifying ecosystem services provided by mobile species like insectivorous bats remains a challenge, particularly in understanding where and how these services vary over space and time. Bats are known to offer valuable ecosystem services, such as mitigating insect pest damage to crops, reducing pesticide use, and reducing nuisance pest populations. However, determining where bats forage is difficult to monitor. In this study, we use a weather‐radar‐based bat‐monitoring algorithm to estimate bat foraging distributions during the peak season of 2019 in California's Northern Central Valley. This region is characterized by valuable agricultural crops and significant populations of both crop and nuisance pests, including midges, moths, mosquitos, and flies. Our results show that bat activity is high but unevenly distributed, with rice fields experiencing significantly elevated activity compared to other land cover types. Specifically, bat activity over rice fields is 1.5 times higher than over any other land cover class and nearly double that of any other agricultural land cover. While irrigated rice fields may provide abundant prey, wetland and water areas showed less than half the bat activity per hectare compared to rice fields. Controlling for land cover type, we found bat activity significantly associated with higher flying insect abundance, indicating that bats forage in areas where crop and nuisance pests are likely to be found. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of radar‐based bat monitoring in identifying where and when bats provide ecosystem services.https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70819agricultureagroecologybat ecologyCalifornia's Central Valleyecosystem servicesmosquitos |
| spellingShingle | Brian Lee Samantha Sambado D. Nākoa Farrant Anna Boser Kacie Ring David Hyon Ashley E. Larsen Andrew J. MacDonald Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control Implications Ecology and Evolution agriculture agroecology bat ecology California's Central Valley ecosystem services mosquitos |
| title | Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control Implications |
| title_full | Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control Implications |
| title_fullStr | Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control Implications |
| title_full_unstemmed | Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control Implications |
| title_short | Novel Bat‐Monitoring Dataset Reveals Targeted Foraging With Agricultural and Pest Control Implications |
| title_sort | novel bat monitoring dataset reveals targeted foraging with agricultural and pest control implications |
| topic | agriculture agroecology bat ecology California's Central Valley ecosystem services mosquitos |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.70819 |
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