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Extraordinary range expansion in a common bat: the potential roles of climate change and urbanisation

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Abstract

Urbanisation and climate change are two global change processes that affect animal distributions, posing critical threats to biodiversity. Due to its versatile ecology and synurbic habits, Kuhl’s pipistrelle (Pipistrellus kuhlii) offers a unique opportunity to explore the relative effects of climate change and urbanisation on species distributions. In a climate change scenario, this typically Mediterranean species is expected to expand its range in response to increasing temperatures. We collected 25,132 high-resolution occurrence records from P. kuhlii European range between 1980 and 2013 and modelled the species’ distribution with a multi-temporal approach, using three bioclimatic variables and one proxy of urbanisation. Temperature in the coldest quarter of the year was the most important factor predicting the presence of P. kuhlii and showed an increasing trend in the study period; mean annual precipitation and precipitation seasonality were also relevant, but to a lower extent. Although urbanisation increased in recently colonised areas, it had little effect on the species’ presence predictability. P. kuhlii expanded its geographical range by about 394 % in the last four decades, a process that can be interpreted as a response to climate change.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the researchers, professionals, NGO representatives or simple participants who helped us to gather all the data necessary to this study. Special thanks go to the French Society for Mammal Study and Protection (SFEPM), the contributing bat local groups (Groupes Chiroptères) of Aquitaine (GCA), Auvergne (Chauve-Souris Auvergne), Corse (GCC), Champagne Ardennes, Ile de France, Languedoc-Rousillon (GCLR), Midi-Pyrénées (CEN-GMCP), Pays de la Loire, Poitou-Charentes, Provence (GCP) and Rhône Alpes as well as the local mammal groups of Alsace (GEPMA), Bretagne (GMB), Limousin (GMHL), Nord (CMNF) and Normandie (GMN). We would also like to thank the LPO and its local groups Anjou and Vendée, as well as the CPIE Loire Anjou and CPIE Vallées de la Sarthe et du Loir, CREN Poitou-Charentes, Faune-Charente-Maritime, Les Naturalistes Vendéens, Mayenne Nature Environnement, Nature Environnement 17 and Picardie Nature. We also received important contributions from the Natural History Museum of Bourges, the French National Forest Office (ONF) and ECO-MED (environmental consultancy), BatLife Österreich (Austria), the Bat Research and Conservation Centre at the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia (Bulgaria), Tel-Aviv University (Israel), RE.NA.TO (Tuscany, Italy), Centro Recupero Fauna Selvatica di Roma (LIPU), the Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (Portugal), the Bat Conservation Switzerland and the Centro protezione chirotteri Ticino (Switzerland). Finally, we would like to thank J.T. Alcalde, B. Allegrini, O. Allenou, E. Amichai, S. Aulagnier, S. Bareille, V. Barret, P. Barros, P. Benda, Y. Bernard, J. Boireau, L. Braz, A. Casadio, G. Caublot, H. Chauvin, G. Coste, JY Courtois, P. Georgiakakis, L. Girard, N. Harter, J. Jemin, P. Jourde, JF. Julien, B. Karapandza, H. Kraettli, M. Lemaire, M. Leuchtmann, S. Lutz, M. Manni Joss, K. Marchesi, M. Mattei-Roesli, S. Meiri, B. Même-Lafond, E. Mori, E. Papadatou, M. Paunovic, R. Pavisse, B. Petrov, P. Presetnik, D. Quekenborn, L. Rodrigues, F. Spitzenberger, G. Testud, P. Théou, M. Thévenot, L. Tillon, S. Vincent A. Vlaschenko and Y. Yovel for their help. N. Ranc was supported by GBIF and Swarovski Optik. We also thank three anonymous reviewers who greatly improved a previous version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wildlife Research Unit, Laboratorio di Ecologia Applicata, Sezione di Biologia e Protezione dei Sistemi Agrari e Forestali, Dipartimento di Agraria, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, via Università 100, I-80055, Portici, Napoli, Italy

    L. Ancillotto & D. Russo

  2. Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie “Charles Darwin”, Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza, Rome, Italy

    L. Santini & L. Maiorano

  3. Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Department, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    N. Ranc

  4. Centro Ricerca ed Innovazione, Fondazione Edmund Mach, San Michele all’Adige, Trento, Italy

    N. Ranc

  5. School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    D. Russo

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  1. L. Ancillotto
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Communicated by: Fritz Geiser

L. Ancillotto and L. Santini are co-first authors.

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Ancillotto, L., Santini, L., Ranc, N. et al. Extraordinary range expansion in a common bat: the potential roles of climate change and urbanisation. Sci Nat 103, 15 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-016-1334-7

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