Secondary forest buffers the effects of fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bat species following 30 years of passive forest restoration (2024)
Journal Article
Rowley, S., López-Baucells, A., Rocha, R., Bobrowiec, P. E. D., & Meyer, C. F. J. (2024). Secondary forest buffers the effects of fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bat species following 30 years of passive forest restoration. Restoration Ecology, e14093. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.14093

Passive forest restoration can buffer the effects of habitat loss on biodiversity. We acoustically surveyed aerial insectivorous bats in a whole‐ecosystem fragmentation experiment in the Brazilian Amazon over a 2‐year period, across 33 sites, compris... Read More about Secondary forest buffers the effects of fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bat species following 30 years of passive forest restoration.

Good practice guidelines for long-term ecoacoustic monitoring in the UK (2023)
Report
Metcalf, O., Abrahams, C., Ashington, B., Baker, E., Bradfer-Lawrence, T., Browning, E., …Smith, S. Good practice guidelines for long-term ecoacoustic monitoring in the UK

The popularity of ecoacoustics as an innovative environmental discipline has enjoyed immense growth within the last five years, to a point where it is now becoming difficult to keep up with all the new research papers published. What soon becomes a... Read More about Good practice guidelines for long-term ecoacoustic monitoring in the UK.

Edge effects and vertical stratification of aerial insectivorous bats across the interface of primary-secondary Amazonian rainforest (2022)
Journal Article
Yoh, N., Clarke, J., López-Baucells, A., Mas, M., Bobrowiec, P., Rocha, R., & Meyer, C. (2022). Edge effects and vertical stratification of aerial insectivorous bats across the interface of primary-secondary Amazonian rainforest. PLoS ONE, 17(9), e0274637. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274637

Edge effects, abiotic and biotic changes associated with habitat boundaries, are key drivers of community change in fragmented landscapes. Their influence is heavily modulated by matrix composition. With over half of the world’s tropical forests pred... Read More about Edge effects and vertical stratification of aerial insectivorous bats across the interface of primary-secondary Amazonian rainforest.

Local and landscape scale effects of fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bats in the Amazon (2022)
Thesis
Rowley, S. Local and landscape scale effects of fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bats in the Amazon. (Dissertation). The University of Salford

Deforestation is the main driver of the biodiversity crisis. Resulting landscapes are left fragmented with isolated remnant forest patches embedded in a human-modified matrix which has the propensity to regenerate into successional forest. The Biolog... Read More about Local and landscape scale effects of fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bats in the Amazon.

Interplay between local and landscape-scale effects on the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of aerial insectivorous Neotropical bats (2022)
Journal Article
López-Baucells, A., Rowley, S., Rocha, R., Bobrowiec, P., Palmeirim, J., Farneda, F., & Meyer, C. (2022). Interplay between local and landscape-scale effects on the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of aerial insectivorous Neotropical bats. Landscape Ecology, 37(11), 2861-2875. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01493-x

Context Human-modified landscapes are globally ubiquitous. It is critical to understand how habitat loss and fragmentation impact biodiversity from both a local habitat context and landscape-scale perspective to inform land management and conservat... Read More about Interplay between local and landscape-scale effects on the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of aerial insectivorous Neotropical bats.

Reproductive phenologies of phyllostomid bats in the Central Amazon (2022)
Journal Article
Hazard, Q., Sabino-Pinto, J., López-Baucells, A., Farneda, F., Meyer, C., & Rocha, R. (2022). Reproductive phenologies of phyllostomid bats in the Central Amazon. Mammalian Biology, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42991-022-00242-6

Mammals tend to align their most energetically demanding phenological events with periods of peak resource availability. Their reproductive phenology is influenced by local resource availability, potentially leading to geographical variation in their... Read More about Reproductive phenologies of phyllostomid bats in the Central Amazon.

Bat phylogenetic responses to regenerating Amazonian forests (2021)
Journal Article
Farneda, F. Z., Rocha, R., Aninta, S. G., López‐Baucells, A., Sampaio, E. M., Palmeirim, J. M., …Meyer, C. F. J. (2021). Bat phylogenetic responses to regenerating Amazonian forests. Journal of Applied Ecology, 59(8), 1986-1996. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14041

Throughout the tropics, regenerating secondary forests occupy vast areas previously cleared for agriculture and cattle ranching. However, despite the importance of regenerating forests in mitigating the pervasive negative consequences of forest loss... Read More about Bat phylogenetic responses to regenerating Amazonian forests.

Habitat disturbance trumps moonlight effects on the activity of tropical insectivorous bats (2021)
Journal Article
Appel, G., López-Baucells, A., Rocha, R., Meyer, C. F. J., & Bobrowiec, P. E. D. (2021). Habitat disturbance trumps moonlight effects on the activity of tropical insectivorous bats. Animal Conservation, 24(6), 1046-1058. https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12706

Changes in moonlight intensity can affect predation risk and induce changes in habitat use and activity of nocturnal species. However, the effect of moonlight on animal activity is rarely evaluated in human-modified landscapes and can be of vital imp... Read More about Habitat disturbance trumps moonlight effects on the activity of tropical insectivorous bats.

Optimising bat bioacoustic surveys in human‐modified Neotropical landscapes (2021)
Journal Article
López-Baucells, A., Yoh, N., Rocha, R., Bobrowiec, P., Palmeirim, J., & Meyer, C. (2021). Optimising bat bioacoustic surveys in human‐modified Neotropical landscapes. Ecological Applications, 31(6), e02366. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2366

During the last decades, the use of bioacoustics as a non‐invasive and cost‐effective sampling method has greatly increased worldwide. For bats, acoustic surveys have long been known to complement traditional mist‐netting, however, appropriate protoc... Read More about Optimising bat bioacoustic surveys in human‐modified Neotropical landscapes.

Consequences of replacing native savannahs with acacia plantations for the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic α- and β-diversity of bats in the northern Brazilian Amazon (2020)
Journal Article
Carvalho, W., Meyer, C., Xavier, B., Mustin, K., Castro, I., Silvestre, S., …Toledo, J. (2020). Consequences of replacing native savannahs with acacia plantations for the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic α- and β-diversity of bats in the northern Brazilian Amazon. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 8, 609214. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.609214

Across the globe, millions of hectares of native vegetation have been replaced by commercial plantations, with negative consequences for biodiversity. The effects of the replacement of native vegetation with commercial plantations on the functional a... Read More about Consequences of replacing native savannahs with acacia plantations for the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic α- and β-diversity of bats in the northern Brazilian Amazon.

Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences (2020)
Journal Article
Christie, A., Abecasis, D., ..., .., Meyer, C., ..., .., & Sutherland, W. (2020). Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences. Nature communications, 11(1), 6377. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20142-y

Building trust in science and evidence-based decision-making depends heavily on the credibility of studies and their findings. Researchers employ many different study designs that vary in their risk of bias to evaluate the true effect of intervention... Read More about Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences.

Echolocation of Central Amazonian 'whispering' phyllostomid bats : call design and interspecific variation (2020)
Journal Article
Yoh, N., Syme, P., Rocha, R., Meyer, C., & Lopez-Baucells, A. (2020). Echolocation of Central Amazonian 'whispering' phyllostomid bats : call design and interspecific variation. Mammal Research, 65, 583-597. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-020-00503-0

Phyllostomids (New World leaf-nosed bats) are the ecologically most diverse bat family and have undergone the most extensive adaptive radiation of any mammalian family. However comprehensive, multi-species studies regarding phyllostomid echolocation... Read More about Echolocation of Central Amazonian 'whispering' phyllostomid bats : call design and interspecific variation.

A global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space (2020)
Journal Article
Jeliazkov, A., Mijatovic, D., Chantepie, S., Andrew, N., Arlettaz, R., Meyer, C., & et, A. (2020). A global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space. Scientific Data, 7(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0344-7

The use of functional information in the form of species traits plays an important role in explaining biodiversity patterns and responses to environmental changes. Although relationships between species composition, their traits, and the environment... Read More about A global database for metacommunity ecology, integrating species, traits, environment and space.

Effects of land‐use change on functional and taxonomic diversity of Neotropical bats (2019)
Journal Article
Farneda, F., Meyer, C., & Grelle, C. (2019). Effects of land‐use change on functional and taxonomic diversity of Neotropical bats. Biotropica, 52(1), 120-128. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.12736

Human land-use changes are particularly extensive in tropical regions, representing one of the greatest threats to terrestrial biodiversity and a key research topic in conservation. However, studies considering the effects of different types of anthr... Read More about Effects of land‐use change on functional and taxonomic diversity of Neotropical bats.

Erosion of phylogenetic diversity in Neotropical bat assemblages : findings from a whole-ecosystem fragmentation experiment (2019)
Journal Article
Aninta, S., Rocha, R., López-Baucells, A., & Meyer, C. (2019). Erosion of phylogenetic diversity in Neotropical bat assemblages : findings from a whole-ecosystem fragmentation experiment. Biodiversity and Conservation, 28(14), 4047-4063. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01864-y

The traditional focus on taxonomic diversity metrics for investigating species responses to habitat loss and fragmentation has limited our understanding of how biodiversity is impacted by habitat modification. This is particularly true for taxonomic... Read More about Erosion of phylogenetic diversity in Neotropical bat assemblages : findings from a whole-ecosystem fragmentation experiment.

Predicting biodiversity loss in island and countryside ecosystems through the lens of taxonomic and functional biogeography (2019)
Journal Article
Farneda, F., Grelle, C., Rocha, R., Ferreira, D., López-Baucells, A., & Meyer, C. (2020). Predicting biodiversity loss in island and countryside ecosystems through the lens of taxonomic and functional biogeography. Ecography, 43(1), https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.04507

We investigate how variation in patch area and forest cover quantified for three different spatial scales (buffer size of 500, 1500 and 3000 m radius) affects species richness and functional diversity of bat assemblages in two ecosystems differing in... Read More about Predicting biodiversity loss in island and countryside ecosystems through the lens of taxonomic and functional biogeography.

Second-growth and small forest clearings have little effect on the temporal activity patterns of Amazonian phyllostomid bats (2019)
Journal Article
Rocha, R., López-Baucells, A., Farneda, F., Ferreira, D., Silva, I., Acácio, M., …Meyer, C. (2020). Second-growth and small forest clearings have little effect on the temporal activity patterns of Amazonian phyllostomid bats. Current Zoology, 66(2), 145-153. https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoz042

Secondary forests and human-made forest gaps are conspicuous features of tropical landscapes. Yet, behavioural responses to these aspects of anthropogenically-modified forests remain poorly investigated. Here, we analyse th... Read More about Second-growth and small forest clearings have little effect on the temporal activity patterns of Amazonian phyllostomid bats.

FragSAD : a database of diversity and species abundance distributions from habitat fragments (2019)
Journal Article
Chase, J., Liebergesell, M., Sagouis, A., May, F., Blowes, S., Berg, A., …Ziv, Y. (2019). FragSAD : a database of diversity and species abundance distributions from habitat fragments. Ecology, 100(12), e02861. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2861

Habitat destruction is the single greatest anthropogenic threat to biodiversity. Decades of research on this issue have led to the accumulation of hundreds of data sets comparing species assemblages in larger, intact, habitats to smaller, more fragme... Read More about FragSAD : a database of diversity and species abundance distributions from habitat fragments.

A global risk assessment of primates under climate and land use/cover scenarios (2019)
Journal Article
Carvalho, J., Graham, B., Rebelo, H., Bocksberger, G., Meyer, C., Wich, S., & Kühl, H. (2019). A global risk assessment of primates under climate and land use/cover scenarios. Global Change Biology, 25(9), 3163-3178. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14671

Primates are facing an impending extinction crisis, driven by extensive habitat loss, land use change, and hunting. Climate change is an additional threat, which alone or in combination with other drivers, may severely impact those taxa unable to tra... Read More about A global risk assessment of primates under climate and land use/cover scenarios.

Stronger together : combining automated classifiers with manual post-validation optimizes the workload vs reliability trade-off of species identification in bat acoustic surveys (2018)
Journal Article
López-Baucells, A., Torrent, L., Rocha, R., Bobrowiec, P., Palmeirim, J., & Meyer, C. (2018). Stronger together : combining automated classifiers with manual post-validation optimizes the workload vs reliability trade-off of species identification in bat acoustic surveys. Ecological Informatics, 49(Jan 19), 45-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2018.11.004

Owing to major technological advances, bioacoustics has become a burgeoning field in ecological research worldwide. Autonomous passive acoustic recorders are becoming widely used to monitor aerial insectivorous bats, and automatic classifiers have... Read More about Stronger together : combining automated classifiers with manual post-validation optimizes the workload vs reliability trade-off of species identification in bat acoustic surveys.