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Bats are hosts to a range of pathogens, which include zoonotic pathogens and pathogens of conservation concern. Brock Fenton's research on bat ecology has always balanced clear communication of potential health risks associated with bats and the need to communicate these risks precisely to avoid unnecessary persecution of bats. Here, we integrate Brock's work in the field of disease ecology with that of his students and collaborators and consider the potential advantages of studying disease ecology of bats within the Canadian context. The broad distribution of a few common species across the vast landscape of present-day Canada provides an opportunity to untangle the impacts of environmental variation on host–pathogen interactions and disease severity, particularly in the context of climate change. The varying migratory strategies and social structure of the bat species found in Canada could also facilitate informative interspecific studies to better understand how bat health is affected by interactions among rapid environmental changes, physiological traits, and the social behaviour of different species. We propose a series of priority research questions and approaches that could further our understanding of bat health and disease ecology in Canada, inspired by the work of Brock, his colleagues, and students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bat conservation has become prevalent over the last few decades due to critical population declines worldwide. Our purpose was to assess whether Brock Fenton's research career coincided with increasing bat conservation research in Canada and North America. Fenton has made significant contributions to bat research during a long and productive publishing career accompanied by participation in research organizations like the North American Society for Bat Research and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. His conservation research as well as efforts to raise public awareness about these animals has coincided with work for the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and its equivalent (Committee on the Status of Species at Risk in Ontario) in ON. To assess the impact of his career, we quantified the relative amount of his peer-reviewed publications with a conservation focus and compared this with the level of conservation-related presentations at annual North American Society for Bat Research conferences. In the same manner, we assessed how often conservation-focused applications were funded by the Ecology and Evolution section of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council—Canada Discovery grant program. Although it cannot be said with authority that Fenton actually initiated the increase in bat conservation research, our results indicate that his research efforts coincide with and presumably had considerable influence in driving this area of research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The fungal pathogen Pseudogymnoascus destructans and resultant white‐nose syndrome (WNS) continues to advance across North America, infecting new bat hibernacula. Western North America hosts the highest bat diversity in the United States and Canada, yet little is known about hibernacula and hibernation behaviour in this region. An improved understanding of the distribution of suitable hibernacula is critical for land managers to anticipate conservation needs of WNS‐susceptible species in currently uninfected regions. Location: United States, Canada. Taxon: Bats. Methods: We estimated suitability of potential winter hibernaculum sites across five bat species' ranges. We estimated winter survival capacity from a mechanistic survivorship model based on bat bioenergetics and climate conditions. We then used boosted regression trees to relate these estimates, along with key landscape attributes, to bat occurrence data in a hybrid correlative‐mechanistic approach. Results: Winter survival capacity, topography, land cover and access to subterranean features were important predictors of winter hibernaculum selection, but the shape and relative importance of these relationships varied amongst species. This suggests that the occurrence of bat hibernacula can, in part, be predicted from readily mapped above‐ground features, not just below‐ground characteristics for which spatial data are lacking. Furthermore, our mechanistic estimate of winter survivorship was, on average, the third strongest predictor of winter occurrence probability across focal species. Main conclusions: Winter distributions of North American bat species were driven by their physiological capacity to survive winter conditions and duration in a given location, as well as selection for topographic and other landscape features but in species‐specific ways. The influence of winter survivorship on several species' distributions, the underlying influence of climate conditions on winter survivorship and the anticipated influence of WNS on bats' hibernation physiology and survivorship together suggest that North American bat distributions may undergo future shifts as these species are exposed not only to WNS but also to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bats are found as fatalities at most wind energy facilities around the world, creating a challenge for wind developers to predict risk to bats in an area before building a new facility. Bat echolocation activity surveys are the standard method for assessing risk, but their effectiveness has not been demonstrated. Sites with relatively low pre-construction bat activity rates are predicted to yield relatively low post-construction fatality rates (i.e., low risk), and vice-versa. To test this hypothesis, we ran simple linear regressions on bat activity rates and fatality rates from 49 paired pre- and post-construction studies across the United States and Canada. Bat activity rates did not predict bat fatality rates at wind energy facilities by detector height, by call frequency category of bats, or by season (P > 0.10). One possible explanation for the lack of a predictive relationship is that bat activity patterns may change between the pre- and post-construction periods if bats are attracted to turbines. Indeed, we found support that bat activity rates increased across call frequency category and season at four wind facilities that had measured bat activity rates before (x̄ = 1.89 bat passes/detector-night) and after turbines were built (x̄ = 4.84 bat passes/detector-night). However, simple linear regressions of post-construction activity rates and fatality rates from 25 studies found no correlation between activity and fatality rates collected concurrently by detector height (ground, raised, nacelle) or by call frequency category (P > 0.05). We conclude that the current pre-construction survey methods of collecting bat activity rates at proposed wind energy facilities do not provide reliable information on how many bat fatalities there may be once the facility is built, and advocate exploring other methods for assessing risk to bats prior to wind development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wind energy is an important sector of the renewable energy market. Observations of bat fatalities at wind farms raise concern about impacts to biodiversity, particularly amid projections of wind energy build-out. We investigated how continued wind energy development in the United States and Canada, as well as adoption of measures to reduce bat fatality rates, influence the population viability of the hoary bat (L. cinereus). Our model included uncertainty about population size and dynamics as well as future wind energy development. Results indicate that current levels of wind energy build-out may have already caused substantial population declines. Under our lowest-risk scenario of high maximum growth rate and low wind energy build-out, the median simulated population of 2.25 million hoary bats experienced a 50% decline by 2028. We show that risks of decline and extinction may still be mediated with rapid adoption of measures to reduce bat fatalities. We find that levels of fatality reduction shown to be achievable in empirical studies of fatality minimization, by turbine curtailment, may be sufficient to manage risks. Simulations of population trends suggest that declines exceeding 5% per year support fatality reduction to manage extinction risk. Importantly, both the risks and the level of fatality reduction necessary to manage them were highly uncertain. Population size remains the most critical data gap to determining population viability of hoary bats. Studies to empirically determine baseline estimates of population size and trends over time remain urgently needed to inform conservation action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on a project of the Nature Conservancy of Canada that aims to protect the at-risk bat population in southern British Columbia. The project is supported by a conservation grant from Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). It is said that the aim of the project is to educate the public about the importance of bats and to document the health of bat habitat. Bat biologist Cori Lausen comments on the condition of bats in the province.