Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Reactive
Proactive
Bats as indicators?
Represent a fifth of all mammalian biodiversity Occupy a wide range of niches Provide a number of ecosystem services Sensitive to climate change as depend on nocturnal flying
insects (themselves sensitive to changes in temperature)
Understanding distributions
European bat species richness Habitat & climate associations can be used to.. predict change in distributions predict change in population status
Changes in populations can be used to.. understand the reasons for change indicate problems within the environment
Other possible indicators water quality climatic change habitat connectivity public involvement
EUROBATS
Established in 1994 currently 30 Parties (UNEP 2001) Agreement set up under the Convention on Migratory
Species - to protect all 45 species found in Europe
Initiate new bat monitoring projects Develop and implement novel monitoring protocols Provide a centralised common database to store and analyse
global bat monitoring data
The first pilot in 2003 with the newly formed Bat Conservation
Ireland - 7 survey teams
2004 - 17 survey routes 2005 - 21 routes with 40 volunteers 2006 - 26 routes with 59 volunteers Adopted by the Irish Government as the official monitoring
technique for 3 species
UK Results 2005-2006
A total of 6911km (3573km 2005; 3338km 2006) of road
were driven.
Seasonal variation
UK Habitat associations
Source: Bats and Roadside Mammals Survey (BCT, Mammals Trust UK)
Source: Bats and Roadside Mammals Survey (BCT, Mammals Trust UK)
Project management: UK
iBats Romania
iBats Bulgaria
Global iBats
ThaiBats
Global iBats
Thanks to EDGE Program, British Ecological Society, Mammals Trust UK, Romanian Bat Protection Association, Bat Conservation Ireland, The Green Balkans, TEAM Conservation International, Lubee Bat Conservancy, Darwin Initiative, Rufford Foundation, Bat Conservation International