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Knowledge of species' functional traits is essential for understanding biodiversity patterns, predicting the impacts of global environmental changes, and assessing the efficiency of conservation measures. Bats are major components of mammalian diversity and occupy a variety of ecological niches and geographic distributions. However, an extensive compilation of their functional traits and ecological attributes is still missing. Here we present EuroBaTrait 1.0, the most comprehensive and up-to-date trait dataset covering 47 European bat species. The dataset includes data on 118 traits including genetic composition, physiology, morphology, acoustic signature, climatic associations, foraging habitat, roost type, diet, spatial behaviour, life history, pathogens, phenology, and distribution. We compiled the bat trait data obtained from three main sources: (i) a systematic literature and dataset search, (ii) unpublished data from European bat experts, and (iii) observations from large-scale monitoring programs. EuroBaTrait is designed to provide an important data source for comparative and trait-based analyses at the species or community level. The dataset also exposes knowledge gaps in species, geographic and trait coverage, highlighting priorities for future data collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Large-scale studies investigating impacts of agricultural practices on biodiversity showed that farmland bird population sizes are negatively related to national agricultural intensification indices in Europe. Here, it was tested whether the nesting strategy of farmland species predicted their abundance variations along a gradient of agricultural production intensity. Ground-nesters, which are strongly declining all over Europe, were expected to be impacted more directly by production intensity than hedge-nesters which would be instead impacted by hedge loss. To test this prediction, previously unavailable fine-scale agricultural data were used over an entire country representing highly diverse farmlands. We modelled the local abundance of 43 farmland bird species, using data from the French breeding bird survey, along an index of agricultural production intensity based on standardized crop yields and herbivore stocking rates, controlling the analysis for local climate and farmed habitat type. 68% of ground-nesters had lower relative abundance in more productive farmlands, whereas only 17% of hedge-nesters did. Nesting strategy explained an important part of bird species responses to spatial variation in agricultural production intensity. Our results suggest that although hedge loss and production intensification were parts of the strong agricultural intensification in Europe, these two phenomena are impacting different bird species. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]