Bat Ecology - BATECO

The Principal Investigator concluded his PhD in 2010 at the University of Bristol where he still is an Honorary Research Fellow. Since then, a research group has been established on the ecology of bats, justified by their remarkable diversity (1/5 of mammals), sensivity to anthropogenic stressors, and impact on ecosystems function and services such as seed-dispersal, pollination and agricultural pest suppression. Therefore, the BatEco research group is divided into three main research themes:

i) ecology of bats and their response to environmental change (including climate change and habitat alteration);

ii) management of the interaction between bat populations and human activities;

iii) evaluation and promotion of bat ecosystem services.

Under these themes, five PhD theses are ongoing or have been finished, which together with an extensive international collaborative network resulted in 25 published papers. In parallel, the connection between the academia, the private sector and governmental institutions has been strongly promoted by transferring and applying our gathered knowledge. Of note, we have developed bat mortality risk maps at wind farms that are being used by the Portuguese environmental agency (ICNF), we have been monitoring the bat pest suppression services at vineyards of the winemaker Herdade do Esporão, and strengthened the collaboration with several environmental consultancy companies (e.g., Bioinsight, Mãe d’Água, Ecosativa, etc.). Regarding the scientific production, one of the main goals of this group resides on the development of new tools and methodologies for the spatial ecology and conservation genetics research. Notably, we have tested the performance of distribution modelling techniques, developed new landscape genetics approaches, and developed a framework to identify populations at risk from climate change.