How does artificial light polution affects bats comunites?5 answersArtificial light at night (ALAN) significantly impacts bat communities by altering their behavior and habitat use. ALAN can disrupt bat movement, affecting their foraging and commuting activities, leading to changes in flight behavior and potentially forcing bats to fly longer distances at night, which can impact their fitness. The intensity of artificial night light has a negative effect on bat occupancy and richness, with most species showing sensitivity to ALAN. Different bat guilds respond differently to ALAN, with narrow-space-foraging species consistently avoiding artificial light while open and edge-space-foraging species may exploit insects attracted to light sources. ALAN can trigger insect prey aggregation, influencing predator-prey relationships, and altering which bat species benefit from the increased prey availability in urban settings. The contemporary effects of ALAN, especially from energy-efficient broad-spectrum lighting, have been shown to decrease bat presence, activity, and even shift community composition, highlighting the significant impact of ALAN on North American bat populations.
What is the average number of insects consumed by different species of bats?5 answersOn average, European vespertilionid bats consume varying amounts of insects per night. The largest species, Nyctalus noctula, consumes around 2.2 g of insects per feeding night, while the smallest Pipistrellus bats consume about 0.4 g. In the southeastern U.S.A., common bat species like Lasiurus seminolus, Nycticeius humeralis, and Myotis austroriparius were found to consume various mosquito species, with some bats consuming endemic arbovirus vectors. In a human-modified landscape in Brazil, open-space insectivorous bats were observed to have the highest proportion of insects in their diet, primarily from forest and pest groups, while narrow-space gleaning frugivores also consumed pest insects. Additionally, Malagasy fruit bats were recorded consuming an average of 37 ectoparasites per day.
How does light affect bats?5 answersArtificial light at night (ALAN) affects bats in various ways. It can alter their movement patterns along landscape structures, with light-averse species being less active and avoiding lit areas, while light-opportunistic species are more active near lights. ALAN can also impact bat behavior, leading to decreased presence and activity, as well as a shift in community composition. The intensity of artificial night light can negatively affect bat occupancy and acoustic space used, resulting in decreased bat richness and occupancy. Bats respond to light exposure by seeking refuge in cluttered environments, potentially due to predation risks. Lighting on bridges can significantly reduce bat activity and affect their flight behavior, highlighting the need to switch off bridge illumination to preserve bat habitats and corridors. Overall, the effects of light on bats vary depending on species and their specific responses to different lighting conditions.
Why Bats Live So Long?4 answersBats live longer than other mammals of similar size due to several factors. These include reduction in mortality risks, delayed sexual maturation, hibernation, and the ability to tolerate a wide range of body temperatures. Bats have unique molecular mechanisms associated with their longevity, such as nutritional factors, oxidative metabolism, protein homeostasis, stress resistance, DNA repair, mitochondrial physiology, and cancer resistance. Long-lived bats exhibit a unique gene expression pattern associated with DNA repair, autophagy, immunity, and tumor suppression, which may contribute to their extended healthspans. Telomeres, which are protective nucleotide repeats on chromosome tips, shorten with age in some bat species but not in the bat genus with the greatest longevity, Myotis. Myotis bats have evolved exceptional longevity through the expression of telomere maintenance genes involved in DNA repair and alternative telomere-lengthening mechanisms.
Effects of biodiversity?3 answersBiodiversity has various effects on ecosystems and human health. It can reduce the transmission of infectious agents and therefore decrease the risk of human disease. Higher plant diversity leads to more energy stored, greater energy flow, and higher community-energy-use efficiency across trophic levels, which is important for ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. Biodiversity can also affect disease risk, with the dilution effect hypothesis suggesting a negative correlation between biodiversity and disease risk. However, the relationship between biodiversity and disease risk is complex and can vary depending on the specific host-parasite system. Additionally, biodiversity can influence the response of ecosystems to disturbances, such as oil spills, with areas of low biodiversity being more vulnerable to such disturbances. Overall, biodiversity plays a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem functioning, disease regulation, and the resilience of ecosystems to disturbances.
Why are they so many species ?5 answersThe great species richness within the arthropods is a topic of discussion in speciation. Selfish elements such as Wolbachia, bacteria, transposable elements, B-chromosomes, meiotic drive, and Medea genes may play important roles in diversification. Fluctuations in collective variables, such as total population, are decreased as speciation increases, leading to enhanced population steadiness. Competition research has provided insights into how species coexist and how communities function, including the identification of trade-off axes, confirmation of the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, and the role of exclusive resources in competition among mobile animals. Niche partitioning by highly specialized plant species and interactions between plant resources and parasites contribute to the high diversity of species in the tropics. Taxonomy, systematics, and paleontological data are essential for understanding the evolutionary history of species.