Journal ArticleDOI
Ecosystem services provided by bats
Thomas H. Kunz,Elizabeth Braun de Torrez,Dana Marie Bauer,Tatyana A. Lobova,Theodore H. Fleming +4 more
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
Information on the ecological and economic value of ecosystem services provided by bats can be used to inform decisions regarding where and when to protect or restore bat populations and associated habitats, as well as to improve public perception of bats.Abstract:
Ecosystem services are the benefits obtained from the environment that increase human well-being. Economic valuation is conducted by measuring the human welfare gains or losses that result from changes in the provision of ecosystem services. Bats have long been postulated to play important roles in arthropod suppression, seed dispersal, and pollination; however, only recently have these ecosystem services begun to be thoroughly evaluated. Here, we review the available literature on the ecological and economic impact of ecosystem services provided by bats. We describe dietary preferences, foraging behaviors, adaptations, and phylogenetic histories of insectivorous, frugivorous, and nectarivorous bats worldwide in the context of their respective ecosystem services. For each trophic ensemble, we discuss the consequences of these ecological interactions on both natural and agricultural systems. Throughout this review, we highlight the research needed to fully determine the ecosystem services in question. Finally, we provide a comprehensive overview of economic valuation of ecosystem services. Unfortunately, few studies estimating the economic value of ecosystem services provided by bats have been conducted to date; however, we outline a framework that could be used in future studies to more fully address this question. Consumptive goods provided by bats, such as food and guano, are often exchanged in markets where the market price indicates an economic value. Nonmarket valuation methods can be used to estimate the economic value of nonconsumptive services, including inputs to agricultural production and recreational activities. Information on the ecological and economic value of ecosystem services provided by bats can be used to inform decisions regarding where and when to protect or restore bat populations and associated habitats, as well as to improve public perception of bats.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Cultural Ecosystem Services: A Literature Review and Prospects for Future Research
TL;DR: In this article, the authors conducted a semiquantitative review of publications explicitly dealing with cultural ecosystem services and identified five groups of publications: conceptual focus, conceptual focus deals with theoretical issues; Group 2, descriptive reviews, consists mostly of desktop studies; Group 3, localized outcomes, deals with case studies coming from different disciplines; Group 4, social and participatory, deals mainly with assessing preferences and perceptions; and Group 5, economic assessments, provides economic valuations.
BookDOI
The Biology of Caves and Other Subterranean Habitats
David C. Culver,Tanja Pipan +1 more
TL;DR: The Biology of Caves and other Subterranean Habitats offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to cave ecology and evolution and more than 650 references, 150 of which are new since the first edition, provide many entry points to the research literature.
Journal ArticleDOI
Frequent arousal from hibernation linked to severity of infection and mortality in bats with white-nose syndrome
DeeAnn M. Reeder,Craig L. Frank,Gregory G. Turner,Carol U. Meteyer,Allen Kurta,Eric R. Britzke,Megan E. Vodzak,Scott R. Darling,Craig W. Stihler,Alan C. Hicks,Roymon Jacob,Laura E. Grieneisen,Sarah A. Brownlee,Laura K. Muller,David S. Blehert +14 more
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that WNS-affected bats aroused to euthermic body temperatures more frequently than unaffected bats, likely contributing to subsequent mortality, and the number of arousal bouts since datalogger attachment significantly predicted date of death.
Journal ArticleDOI
A review of the major threats and challenges to global bat conservation
TL;DR: It is shown that global and regional networks that connect researchers, conservation practitioners, and local stakeholders to share knowledge, build capacity, and prioritize and coordinate research and conservation efforts, are vital to ensuring sustainable bat populations worldwide.
Journal ArticleDOI
Bats and birds increase crop yield in tropical agroforestry landscapes
TL;DR: It is found that bat and bird exclusion increased insect herbivore abundance, despite the concurrent release of mesopredators such as ants and spiders, and negatively affected fruit development, with final crop yield decreasing by 31% across local (shade cover) and landscape gradients.
References
More filters
PERSPECTIVES Managing ecosystem services: what do we need to know about their ecology?
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss critical questions and key approaches in four areas: identifying the important ecosystem service providers; determining the various aspects of community structure that influence function in real landscapes, especially compensatory community responses that stabilize function, or non-random extinction sequences that rapidly erode it; assessing key environmental factors influencing provision of services, and measuring the spatio-temporal scale over which providers and services operate.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Ecology of Fear: Optimal Foraging, Game Theory, and Trophic Interactions
TL;DR: This work extends foraging theory to consider a predator-prey game of stealth and fear and then embeds this game into the modeling of predator- prey population dynamics, which identifies the endpoints of a continuum of N-driven (population size) versus μ- driven (fear) systems.
Journal ArticleDOI
A molecular phylogeny for bats illuminates biogeography and the fossil record.
Emma C. Teeling,Emma C. Teeling,Mark S. Springer,Ole Madsen,Paul J. J. Bates,Stephen J. O'Brien,William J. Murphy,William J. Murphy +7 more
TL;DR: The results support the hypothesis that megabats are nested among four major microbat lineages, which originated in the early Eocene, coincident with a significant global rise in temperature, increase in plant diversity and abundance, and the zenith of Tertiary insect diversity.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Ecology of Heliothis Species in Relation to Agroecosystems
TL;DR: As key pests of several agricultural and horticultural crops, the four species I have singled out for review have attracted an enormous volume of research work and the literature on their ecology, biology and management is vast.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Value of Nature and the Nature of Value
Gretchen C. Daily,Tore Söderqvist,Sara Aniyar,Kenneth J. Arrow,Partha Dasgupta,Paul R. Ehrlich,Carl Folke,Ann Mari Jansson,Bengt Owe Jansson,Nils Kautsky,Simon A. Levin,Jane Lubchenco,Karl-Göran Mäler,David Simpson,David A. Starrett,David Tilman,Brian Walker +16 more
TL;DR: The process of economic valuation could greatly improve stewardship of ecosystems and is now being realized with innovative financial instruments and institutional arrangements.