Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Urbanization and the abundance and diversity of Prairie bats

  • Published:
Urban Ecosystems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The effects of urbanization on biodiversity are generally considered to be negative, but the potential for landscape context to modulate these effects has not been adequately examined because most urban ecology research has been conducted in one biome: the temperate forest. This bias also applies to studies of the urban ecology of bats, whose diversity is correlated with habitat heterogeneity. We investigated the hypothesis that in the fairly flat, homogeneous Prairies, urbanization, by creating structurally complex islands, benefits bats by increasing access to the vertical landscape elements (buildings and trees) in which they roost. From 2006 to 2008, we surveyed bat assemblages in and around Calgary, Alberta, using mist nets to capture them and bat detectors to record their echolocation activity. Our data supported the prediction that urbanization increases the abundance of Prairie bats, but not the prediction that it increases their diversity. Instead, the urban bat assemblage was less diverse, and exhibited decreased species evenness compared to non-urban assemblages. Although Myotis lucifugus dominated bat assemblages throughout our study area, this was most evident in the city, and this species drove the increased urban abundance of bats. Ultimately, we reject our hypothesis and conclude that urbanization in the Prairies may create attractive habitat for one synanthropic bat, but is detrimental to others.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agosta SJ (2002) Habitat use, diet and roost selection by the Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus) in North America: a case for conserving an abundant species. Mamm Rev 32:179–198

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alberta Environmental Protection (1997) 1997 Alberta State of the Environment Report: Terrestrial ecosystems. Alberta Environmental Protection, Edmonton, Alberta

  • Avila-Flores R, Fenton MB (2005) Use of spatial features by foraging insectivorous bats in a large urban landscape. J Mammal 86:1193–1204

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barclay RMR (1989) The effect of reproductive condition on the foraging behavior of female hoary bats, Lasiurus cinereus. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 24:31–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barclay RMR (1993) The biology of Prairie bats, In The 3rd Prairie Conservation and Endangered Species Workshop. In Holroyd GL, Dickson HL, Regnier M, Smith HC (eds), Provincial Museum of Alberta, Brandon, Manitoba, pp. 353–357

  • Barclay RMR, Harder LD (2003) Life histories of bats: life in the slow lane. In: Kunz TH, Fenton MB (eds) Bat ecology. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, pp 209–253

    Google Scholar 

  • Bate LJ, Wisdom MJ, Wales BC (2007) Snag densities in relation to human access and associated management factors in forests of Northeastern Oregon, USA. Landsc Urban Plann 80:278–291

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bredt A, Uieda W (1996) Bats from urban and rural environments of the Distrito Federal, mid-western Brazil. Chiroptera Neotropical 2:54–57

    Google Scholar 

  • Chace JF, Walsh JJ (2006) Urban effects on native avifauna: a review. Landsc Urban Plann 74:46–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coleman J (2010) The Effects of urbanization on Prairie Bats, In Department of Biological Sciences. p. 206. University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.

  • Cook WM, Faeth SH (2006) Irrigation and land use drive ground arthropod community patterns in an urban desert. Environ Entomol 35:1532–1540

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Corben C (2000) Anamusic WAV File Generation Utility

  • Corben C (2004) Analook bat call analysis system

  • Cromartie JB (1998) Net migration in the Great Plains increasingly linked to natural amenities and suburbanization. Rural Dev Perspect 13:27–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Crooks KR, Soulé ME (1999) Mesopredator release and avifaunal extinctions in a fragmented system. Nature 400:563–566

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Czech B, Krausman PR, Devers PK (2000) Economic associations among causes of species endangerment in the United States. Bioscience 50:593–601

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis WH, Hitchcock HB (1965) Biology and migration of the bat, Myotis lucifugus, in New England. J Mammal 46:296–313

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duchamp JE, Swihart RK (2008) Shifts in bat community structure related to evolved traits and features of human-altered landscapes. Landscape Ecol 23:849–860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ecological Stratification Working Group (1995) Terrestrial ecozones, ecoregions, and ecodistricts of Canada: Provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. A national ecological framework for Canada. Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada, Research Branch Centre for Land and Biological Resources Research and Environment Canada, State of the Environment Directorate, Ecozone Analysis Branch, Ottawa–Hull, Canada

  • Engqvist L (2005) The mistreatment of covariate interaction terms in linear model analyses of behavioural and evolutionary ecology studies. Anim Behav 70:967–971

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evelyn MJ, Stiles DA, Young RA (2004) Conservation of bats in suburban landscapes: roost selection by Myotis yumanensis in a residential area in California. Biol Conserv 115:463–473

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Everette AL, O'Shea TJ, Ellison LE, Stone LA, McCance JL (2001) Bat use of a high-plains urban wildlife refuge. Wildl Soc Bull 29:967–973

    Google Scholar 

  • Faure PA, Barclay RMR (1994) Substrate-gleaning versus aerial-hawking: plasticity in the foraging and echolocation behaviour of the long-eared bat, Myotis evotis. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 174:651–660

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Fenton MB (2003) Science and the conservation of bats: where to next? Wildl Soc Bull 31:6–15

    Google Scholar 

  • Fenton MB, Fleming TH (1976) Ecological interactions between bats and nocturnal birds. Biotropica 8:104–110

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fischer J, Stott J, Law BS, Adams MD, Forrester RI (2009) Designing effective habitat studies: quantifying multiple sources of variability in bat activity. Acta Chiropterologica 11:127–137

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Forman RTT, Alexander LE (1998) Roads and their major ecological effects. Annu Rev Ecol Syst 29:207–231

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gaisler J, Zukal J, Rehak Z, Homolka M (1998) Habitat preference and flight activity of bats in a city. J Zool, London 244:439–445

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garden J, McAlpine C, Peterson ANN, Jones D, Possingham H (2006) Review of the ecology of Australian urban fauna: a focus on spatially explicit processes. Austral Ecology 31:126–148

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gauthier DA, Wiken EB (2003) Monitoring the conservation of grassland habitats, prairie ecozone, Canada. Environ Monit Assess 88:343–364

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Geggie JF, Fenton MB (1985) A comparison of foraging by Eptesicus fuscus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in urban and rural environments. Can J Zool 63:263–266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gehrt SD, Chelsvig JE (2003) Bat activity in an urban landscape: patterns at the landscape and microhabitat scale. Ecol Appl 13:939–950

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gehrt SD, Chelsvig JE (2004) Species-specific patterns of bat activity in an urban landscape. Ecol Appl 14:625–635

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ghitter G, Smart A (2009) Mad cows, regional governance, and urban sprawl: path dependence and unintended consequences in the Calgary Region. Urban Aff Rev 44:617–644

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes JP (1997) Temporal variation in activity of bats and the design of echolocation-monitoring studies. J Mammal 78:514–524

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holloway GL, Barclay RMR (2000) Importance of prairie riparian zones to bats in southeastern Alberta. Ecoscience 7:115–122

    Google Scholar 

  • Holloway GL, Barclay RMR (2001) Myotis ciliolabrum. Mammalian Species 670:1–5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hourigan CL, Johnson C, Robson SKA (2006) The structure of a micro-bat community in relation to gradients of environmental variation in a tropical urban area. Urban Ecosyst 9:67–82

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Humphrey SR (1975) Nursery roosts and community diversity of Nearctic bats. J Mammal 56:321–346

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson JB, Gates JE, Ford WM (2008) Distribution and activity of bats at local and landscape scales within a rural–urban gradient. Urban Ecosyst 11:227–242

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones RC, Clark CC (1987) Impact of watershed urbanization on stream insect communities. J Am Water Resour Assoc 23:1047–1055

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kalcounis-Rueppell MC, Payne VH, Huff SR, Boyko AL (2007) Effects of wastewater treatment plant effluent on bat foraging ecology in an urban stream system. Biol Conserv 138:120–130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirsten I, Klomp NI (1998) Microchiroptera in urban, rural and forest areas of southern NSW. Australas Bat Soc Newsl 11:28–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Kunz TH (1973) Resource utilization: temporal and spatial components of bat activity in central Iowa. J Mammal 54:14–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kunz TH, Fenton MB (2003) Bat ecology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

    Google Scholar 

  • Kunz TH, Hodgkison R, Weise CD (2009) Methods of capturing and handling bats. In: Kunz TH, Parsons S (eds) Ecological and behavioral methods for the study of bats, 2nd edn. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp 3–35

    Google Scholar 

  • Kurta A, Teramino JA (1992) Bat community structure in an urban park. Ecography 15:257–261

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lac S, Colan C (2004) South Saskatchewan river basin biogeography. University of Regina, Regina, SK

    Google Scholar 

  • Larson DJ, Hayes JP (2000) Variability in sensitivity of Anabat II bat detectors and a method of calibration. Acta Chiropterologica 2:209–213

    Google Scholar 

  • Lauriault J (1989) Identification guide to the trees of Canada. National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa

    Google Scholar 

  • Lemmen DS, Vance RE, Wolfe SA, Last WM (1997) Impacts of future climate change on the southern Canadian Prairies: a paleoenvironmental perspective. Geosci Can 24:121–133

    Google Scholar 

  • Loeb SC, Post CJ, Hall ST (2009) Relationship between urbanization and bat community structure in national parks of the southeastern U.S. Urban Ecosyst 12:197–214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mackey RL, Currie DJ (2001) The diversity-disturbance relationship: is it generally strong and peaked? Ecology 82:3479–3492

    Google Scholar 

  • Magurran AE (2004) Measuring biological diversity, 2nd edn. Blackwell Science Ltd., Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Marzluff JM, Ewing K (2001) Restoration of fragmented landscapes for the conservation of birds: a general framework and specific recommendations for urbanizing landscapes. Restor Ecol 9:280–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McIntyre S, Hobbs R (1999) A framework for conceptualizing human effects on landscapes and its relevance to management and research models. Conserv Biol 13:1282–1292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKinney ML (2002) Urbanization, biodiversity, and conservation. Bioscience 52:883–890

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKinney ML (2006) Urbanization as a major cause of biotic homogenization. Biol Conserv 127:247–260

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moss EH (1932) The vegetation of Alberta: IV. The poplar association and related vegetation of central Alberta. J Ecol 20:380–415

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Niemelä J (1999) Is there a need for a theory of urban ecology? Urban Ecosyst 3:57–65

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Norberg UM, Rayner JMV (1987) Ecological morphology and flight in bats (Mammalia; Chiroptera): wing adaptations, flight performance, foraging strategy and echolocation. Phil Trans Roy Soc Lond B Biol Sci 316:335–427

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ober HK, Hayes JP (2008) Prey selection by bats in forests of western Oregon. J Mammal 89:1191–1200

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ormsbee PC, McComb WC (1998) Selection of day roosts by female long-legged Myotis in the central Oregon Cascade Range. J Wildl Manage 62:596–603

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Potere D, Schneider A, Angel S, Civco DL (2009) Mapping urban areas on a global scale: which of the eight maps now available is more accurate? Int J Remote Sens 30:6531–6558

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Racey PA, Entwistle AC (2003) Conservation Ecology of Bats. In: Kunz TH, Fenton MB (eds) Bat ecology. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp 680–743

    Google Scholar 

  • Rainho A (2007) Summer foraging habitats of bats in a Mediterranean region of the Iberian Peninsula. Acta Chiropterologica 9:171–181

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richards GC (2001) Towards defining adequate bat survey methodology: why electronic call detection is essential throughout the night. Australas Bat Soc Newsl 16:24–28

    Google Scholar 

  • Samson F, Knopf F (1994) Prairie conservation in North America. Bioscience 44:418–421

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schaub A, Ostwald J, Siemers BM (2008) Foraging bats avoid noise. J Exp Biol 211:3174–3180

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Seaby RM, Henderson PA (2006) Species diversity and richness. Pisces Conservation Ltd., Lymington

    Google Scholar 

  • Shochat E, Warren PS, Faeth SH, McIntyre NE, Hope D (2006) From patterns to emerging processes in mechanistic urban ecology. Trends Ecol Evol 21:186–191

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Solick DI, Barclay RMR (2006) Morphological differences among western long-eared myotis (Myotis evotis) populations in different environments. J Mammal 87:1020–1026

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Solick DI, Barclay RMR (2007) Geographic variation in the use of torpor and roosting behaviour of female western long-eared bats. J Zool 272:358–366

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Solow AR (1993) A simple test for change in community structure. J Anim Ecol 62:191–193

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sparks DW, Laborda JA Jr, Whitaker JO (1998) Bats of the Indianapolis International Airport as compared to a more rural community of bats at Prairie Creek. Proc Indiana Acad Sci 107:171–179

    Google Scholar 

  • Statistics Canada (2007) Population and dwelling counts, for census metropolitan areas and census agglomerations, 2006 and 2001 censuses—100% data

  • Sun H, Forsythe W, Waters N (2007) Modeling urban land use change and urban sprawl: Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Network Spatial Econ 7:353–376

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas DW (1988) The distribution of bats in different ages of Douglas-fir forests. J Wildl Manage 52:619–626

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas DW, LaVal RK (1988) Survey and census methods. In: Kunz TH (ed) Ecological and behavioral methods for the study of bats. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, pp 77–89

    Google Scholar 

  • Ticer CL, Ockenfels RA, Devos JC, Morrell TE (1998) Habitat use and activity patterns of urban-dwelling javelina. Urban Ecosyst 2:141–151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations (2008) World Urbanization Prospects: The 2007 Revision Highlights. United Nations Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, New York, New York

  • van der Ree R, McCarthy MA (2005) Inferring persistence of indigenous mammals in response to urbanisation. Anim Conserv 8:309–319

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaughan N, Jones G, Harris S (1997) Habitat use by bats (Chiroptera) assessed by means of a broad-band acoustic method. J Appl Ecol 34:716–730

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vujnovic K, Wein RW, Dale MRT (2002) Predicting plant species diversity in response to disturbance magnitude in grassland remnants of central Alberta. Can J Bot 80:504–511

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walsh AL, Harris S (1996a) Factors determining the abundance of vespertilionid bats in Britain: geographical, land class and local habitat relationships. J Appl Ecol 33:519–529

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walsh AL, Harris S (1996b) Foraging habitat preferences of vespertilionid bats in Britain. J Appl Ecol 33:508–518

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wickett SM (1900) City government in Canada. Polit Sci Q 15:240–259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willis CKR, Brigham RM (2005) Physiological and ecological aspects of roost selection by reproductive female hoary bats (Lasiurus cinereus). J Mammal 86:85–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

For invaluable assistance in the field, we thank: N. Boulic, A. Bugajski, A. Goldie, T. Hershon, C. Olson, P. Payette, and especially E. Swerdfeger. Many thanks to C. Lausen for advice and reference calls. This project would not have been possible without the cooperation of government agencies that facilitated access to public lands, including the Government of Alberta (Tourism Parks and Recreation), the City of Calgary and Parks Canada. We also thank the private landowners who not only welcomed us onto their properties, but also showed both hospitality and an interest in bats and our work with them. Funding and materials were provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Killam Trusts, Bat Conservation International, University of Calgary and Canadian Tire.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4, Canada

    Joanna L. Coleman & Robert M. R. Barclay

Authors
  1. Joanna L. Coleman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Robert M. R. Barclay
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joanna L. Coleman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Coleman, J.L., Barclay, R.M.R. Urbanization and the abundance and diversity of Prairie bats. Urban Ecosyst 15, 87–102 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-011-0181-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-011-0181-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation