Large-scale long-term passive-acoustic monitoring reveals
spatio-temporal activity patterns of boreal bats
Abstract
The distribution ranges and spatio-temporal patterns in the occurrence
and activity of boreal bats are yet largely unknown due to their cryptic
lifestyle and lack of suitable and efficient study methods. We
approached the issue by establishing a permanent passive-acoustic
sampling setup spanning the area of Finland to gain an understanding on
how latitude affects bat species composition and activity patterns in
northern Europe. The recorded bat calls were semi-automatically
identified for three target taxa; Myotis spp., Eptesicus nilssonii or
Pipistrellus nathusii and the seasonal activity patterns were modeled
for each taxa across the seven sampling years (2015–2021). We found an
increase in activity since 2015 for E. nilssonii and Myotis spp. For E.
nilssonii and Myotis spp. we found significant latitude -dependent
seasonal activity patterns, where seasonal variation in patterns
appeared stronger in the north. Over the years, activity of P. nathusii
increased during activity peak in June and late season but decreased in
mid season. We found the passive-acoustic monitoring network to be an
effective and cost-efficient method for gathering bat activity data to
analyze spatio-temporal patterns. Long-term data on the composition and
dynamics of bat communities facilitates better estimates of abundances
and population trend directions for conservation purposes and predicting
the effects of climate change.