Center for North
American Bat Research and Conservation
Current
Research Projects
Impacts of
Urbanization on Bats:
Nearly 80% of people in the US now live in urban areas, and
these urban areas are rapidly taking over the countryside.
For example Indiana loses about 101,000 acres per year to
some type of development. In coordination with the
Indianapolis Airport Authority, we are currently conducting
a large-scale study of bats near the Indianapolis
International Airport that is providing new insights into
how this development impacts bats and other types of
wildlife. For example we have found that new housing
additions are a barrier to movements of both Indiana bats (a
federally-endangered species) and evening bats (a
state-endangered species), but are freely crossed by the big
brown bat that thrives in urban areas.
Population
Demographics of Bats:
Most available data suggest bats are declining throughout
much of the world. Unfortunately, we know very little about
the factors that cause population increases/decreases such
as individual survival rates across years, how many young
survive to breeding age, and causes of death among bats.
Thus, the ISU bat center is working to bring together
banding data from throughout the eastern US. We are also
working in conjunction with the US Geological Survey to
develop genetic mark-recapture techniques that will allow us
to “band” bats without ever touching them. Together these
approaches promise to provide new insights into the
population dynamics of bats.
Insecticides and Bats:
Bats in Indiana are exclusively insectivorous, and this
potentially exposes them to pesticides used in agriculture.
Preliminary data collected by our lab in conjunction with
the US Fish and Wildlife Service has indicated that at least
some bats are being impacted by pesticides. Because we have
access to large numbers of newly dead bats (from the state
rabies lab) we have a unique opportunity to study this
important conservation issue.
Diet of Insectivorous
Bats:
Much of what is known about the diet of bats in the United
States is the result of work done either in or in
association with our lab. We have found that bat diets vary
across seasons, and that many local bats feed primarily on
agricultural pests. We are now conducting experiments aimed
at understanding the digestive efficiency of bats, which
will tell us a lot about why the consistently select
specific types of foods.
Rabies in Bats:
For more than 40 years our faculty has been receiving the
carcass of each individual bat that is submitted to the
state as potentially rabid. In coordination with the Centers
for Disease Control, and the Indiana Board of Health, we are
working to understand which bats are most likely to be rabid
and how the disease moves through populations of bats.
Biogeography of Bats:
Biogeographers study of the spatial distribution of
organisms. We are currently using GIS-based techniques to
examine distribution patterns of bats in the Eastern United
States. Among the issues we are addressing is whether there
are broad geographic patterns of abundance among both
different species and sexes. For example, for many years
biologists have noted that Red and Hoary bats seem to be
sexually segregated in summer. We suspect this is also the
case in other species as well, and are also looking for
patterns in the abundance of bats related to the amount of
forest cover, proximity of highways, and many other spatial
attributes.
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