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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Conserv. Sci.
Sec. Animal Conservation
Volume 5 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2024.1491713
This article is part of the Research Topic Ecological Function of Pest Bio-Control Provisioned by Obligate and Omnivorous Vertebrate Predators in Various Habitats. View all articles

Enhancing Insectivorous bat activity through sound manipulation and assessing the contribution of small gaps in windbreaks in the hyper-arid Arava desert

Provisionally accepted
Adi Einav Adi Einav 1Itamar Giladi Itamar Giladi 1*Jessica Schäckermann Jessica Schäckermann 2Carmi Korine Carmi Korine 1
  • 1 Swiss Institute for Dryland Environmental and Energy Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Southern District, Israel
  • 2 Southern Arava Research and Development (SA R&D), Hevel Eilot, Israel

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Insectivorous bats are an important group of natural enemies that use echolocation for communication, navigation, and foraging. While foraging, bats often eavesdrop on calls from other foraging individuals and are attracted to them as these indicate prey abundance. In addition, they use hedgerows such as tree lines in agroecosystems for commuting and foraging. In the present study, we employed two approaches to enhance the activity of desert-dwelling bats in fields of melon, pumpkin and onion in the hyper-arid Arava desert, Israel. We broadcasted playbacks of echolocation calls of two common desert bats, Hypsugo ariel and Eptesicus bottae over the crop fields as a direct means and used gaps in windbreak lines made of planted trees Tamarix spp. as indirect means. We predicting that both approaches will enhance the activity of the bats in these agricultural fields. Playback manipulation had differing results between the two species. The activity of H. ariel was initially higher in the control plot, but as broadcasting continued, the manipulated plot exhibited significantly higher activity over onion fields. In contrast, the activity of E. bottae declined over Cucurbit fields in the manipulated plots. These differences in response may reflect differences between the species in the in level of sociality while foraging. Total bat activity and feeding buzzes ratio were significantly higher in small windbreak gaps compared to plots with continues tree line. Our results indicate the potential and the limitations of enhancing bat activity by broadcasting echolocation calls in open crop fields and the importance of landscape features which increase the heterogeneity of the crop fields to attract natural enemies in Conservation Biological Control.

    Keywords: Insectivorous bats, bat lure, Agricultural fields, Pest Control, sustainable agriculture, Hyper-arid, ecosystem services

    Received: 05 Sep 2024; Accepted: 11 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Einav, Giladi, Schäckermann and Korine. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Itamar Giladi, Swiss Institute for Dryland Environmental and Energy Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, 8410501, Southern District, Israel

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