Alberta researchers look for information about how insecticides may be affecting bats by poking into what remains from their diets
The Alberta Community Bat Program is looking for bat homes near crops to test the bat poop for insects and lingering pesticide found in the guano.
“The insecticide project ties in well with our bat-friendly farms initiative, which aims to promote bat stewardship on farms and improve practices for how bats are managed in these areas. Many of our bats roost in farmyard buildings, so are strongly affected by how those buildings are managed,” Cory Olson, Alberta Bat Program co-ordinator, said in an email.
“Bats provide considerable value to farmers by providing free pest-control services. All of our bats eat nothing but insects (and sometimes spiders); that includes many agricultural pests, but that also means they have potentially high exposure to insecticides,” wrote Olson.
Read Also
Alberta crop diversification centres receive funding
$5.2 million of provincial funding pumped into crop diversity research centres
“The project is specifically examining neonicotinoid-based insecticides, often applied as a seed coat to plants such as canola. There has been some evidence that this class of insecticides could be harmful to bats, but there is considerable uncertainty regarding the extent of this threat in real-world situations,” he said.
The Alberta Community Bat Program is a project of Wildlife Conservation Society Canada that has operated for the past seven years.
“From the start of this project, we have been managing a community science and public outreach project, which promotes public stewardship of bat habitats and compiles voluntary information on bat roosting locations across Alberta. Information on bat roosts is important for monitoring bat populations and conservation research.”
Two of the most common bat species — little brown myotis and big brown bats — very often roost in buildings and bat houses, often on private land, so public involvement is important to meet conservation and recovery objectives.
“Guano left behind by bats has proven invaluable for studying bats. We are using guano this year for examining exposure to neonicotinoid-based pesticides, testing for the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in bats, determining the species of bat occupying roosts, and examining what bats are eating.”
Bats can eat 5,000 mosquito-sized insects per night. In four months, a colony of 100 little brown myotis can eat almost 100 kilograms of insects.
A colony of 150 big brown bats can eat 38,000 cucumber beetles, 16,000 June bugs, 19,000 stink bugs and 50,000 leafhoppers in a single summer.
Bat populations increase slowly. Most bats produce one pup per year and only half of the pups survive their first winter.
