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With increasing urbanization, particularly in developing countries, it is important to understand how local biota will respond to such landscape changes. Bats comprise one of the most diverse groups of mammals in urban areas, and many species are threatened by habitat destruction and land use change. Yet, in Africa, the response of bats to urban areas is relatively understudied. Therefore, we collated data on urban presence, phylogenetic relationship, and ecological traits of 54 insectivorous bats in Africa from available literature to test if their response to urbanization was phylogenetically and/or ecologically driven. Ancestral state reconstruction of urban tolerance, defined by functional group and presence observed in urban areas, suggests that ancestral African bat species could adapt to urban landscapes, and significant phylogenetic signal for urban tolerance indicates that this ability is evolutionarily conserved and mediated by pre‐adaptations. Specifically, traits of high wing loading and aspect ratio, and flexible roosting strategies, enable occupancy of urban areas. Therefore, our results identify the traits that predict which bat species will likely occur in urban areas, and which vulnerable bat clades conservation efforts should focus on to reduce loss of both functional and phylogenetic diversity in Africa. We, additionally, highlight several gaps in research that should be investigated in future studies to provide better monitoring of the impact urbanization will have on African bats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semi‐arid and arid landscapes (dry‐lands) cover 41% of the Earth's land surface over five continents. These areas are home to 55% of mammal species. Bats have the second highest species richness among mammals, and, although many species are adapted to arid conditions, they are particularly sensitive in these habitats and require conservation priority.Information on bats in arid and semi‐arid landscapes is scattered, patchy and focused on small‐scale studies; therefore, we undertook a systematic review using the PRISMA protocol to identify the current knowledge status, detect knowledge gaps and propose future research priorities.We analysed 346 published articles and evaluated 40 topics within five topic categories (taxa studied, methodologies used, biology, ecology and conservation). The most commonly studied topic categories were ecology and biology. However, we found a gap in the topic category conservation (including topics such as conservation status and roost conservation). Our network analysis of topics within the categories showed that most ecology papers were focused on distribution, species richness and habitat use.When we analysed keywords, we found that phylogeny, taxonomy and distribution demonstrated relatively high presence. Moreover, comparison of the percentage of studies conducted in dry‐lands and the percentage of land surface area covered by dry‐lands in the continents revealed that dry‐lands in Africa and Australia were especially under‐represented. Our review shows that knowledge of bats in semi‐arid and arid landscapes is biased towards new records of the distribution of species, as well as covering systematic/taxonomic and morphological aspects of bat biology.We suggest that research on conservation measures and guidelines to protect the bat species found in semi‐arid and arid landscapes should be prioritised, together with the sharing of knowledge with local practitioners and the development of citizen science programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bats are considered important bioindicators and deliver key ecosystem services to humans. However, it is not clear how the individual and combined effects of climate change and land-use change will affect their conservation in the future. We used a spatial conservation prioritization framework to determine future shifts in the priority areas for the conservation of 169 bat species under projected climate and land-use change scenarios across Africa. Specifically, we modelled species distribution models under four different climate change scenarios at the 2050 horizon. We used land-use change scenarios within the spatial conservation prioritization framework to assess habitat quality in areas where bats may shift their distributions. Overall, bats’ representation within already existing protected areas in Africa was low (∼5% of their suitable habitat in protected areas which cover ∼7% of Africa). Accounting for future land-use change resulted in the largest shift in spatial priority areas for conservation actions, and species representation within priority areas for conservation actions decreased by ∼9%. A large proportion of spatial conservation priorities will shift from forested areas with little disturbance under present conditions to agricultural areas in the future. Planning land use to reduce impacts on bats in priority areas outside protected areas where bats will be shifting their ranges in the future is crucial to enhance their conservation and maintain the important ecosystem services they provide to humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]