AUTHORS: Erin O’Connell, Washington University in St. Louis; Solny Adalsteinsson, Washington University in St. Louis; Whitney Anthonysamy, University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy; Beth Biro, Washington University in St. Louis
ABSTRACT: Bats provide ecosystem services as insect predators and nutrient recyclers and are often critical pollinators and seed dispersers. However, bats are in decline across North America due to threats from land use changes, pesticides, disease, invasive species, wind energy, and climate change. As part of the St. Louis Wildlife Project (STLWP), we seek to understand how bat communities are changing over time and in response to urbanization. Our goals for STLWP are to apply this knowledge to influence city planning policy and to spreading awareness about urban bat biodiversity and threats to bats. To monitor bats in St. Louis, we deployed acoustic monitors along an urbanization gradient from the Gateway Arch National Park to Eureka, MO, through the Henry Shaw Ozark Corridor. We recorded bat calls for one month each during spring, summer, and fall in conjunction with St. Louis Wildlife Project monitoring. We then analyzed the recordings using auto-detection software to identify bats to species. We detected ten total species of bats in the greater St. Louis area, including three species of endangered bats: Indiana bats (Myotis sodalist), gray bats (Myotis grisescens), and northern long-eared bats (Myotis septentrionalis). The most commonly detected bats across the transect included big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) and hoary bats (Lasiurus cinereus). These findings are critical to informing urban management plans, as well as garnering support for habitat restoration efforts.
