Bats in a tropical wind farm: species composition and importance of the spatial attributes of vegetation cover on bat fatalities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Although many tropical countries have functional wind farms, most of the information on their impact on bat populations has come from temperate zones. Our study is based on a 5-year study (2009–2013) of bat captures using mist nets, acoustic recordings, and carcass searches at a wind farm in tropical southern Mexico. We investigated the composition of bat species, estimated the number of bat fatalities per turbine, and assessed the effect of the spatial attributes of vegetation cover near turbines on numbers of bat carcasses recovered by trophic guild. We recorded 29 bat species at the wind farm. The family Phyllostomidae was best represented in terms of number of species and individuals captured. Glossophaga soricina and G. morenoi exhibited the highest relative abundance, whereas Balantiopteryx plicata had the highest acoustic activity. We found 203 carcasses, including 73 Pteronotus davyi individuals (35.9%); other frequent species were Mormoops megalophylla, Molossus sinaloae, and Lasiurus intermedius. The total number of carcasses found within a year ranged from 17 to 83 (2012 and 2009, respectively), with the corrected estimates ranging from 410 to 1,980, or 4.18–20.20 fatalities/turbine. The number of carcasses recorded was positively correlated with secondary vegetation surrounding turbines but negatively correlated with agricultural fields. The spatial attributes of vegetation surrounding turbines influenced numbers of bat carcasses differentially depending on the bats’ trophic guild and habitat use. Contrary to findings from United States and Canadian wind farms, most of the carcasses observed in our study were resident species. Notably, the most commonly captured and acoustically active species were not the most commonly found in carcass searches. To obtain more accurate information about the most vulnerable species and how to reduce the impact on bat mortality, we advise the use of alternative monitoring methods in pre-construction studies. Aunque muchos países tropicales han promovido el establecimiento de parques eólicos en sus territorios, mucha de la información referente al impacto de esta actividad sobre las poblaciones de murciélagos proviene de zonas templadas. Usando datos de 5 años (2009–2013) de muestreos con redes de niebla, grabaciones acústicas, y búsquedas de cadáveres en un parque eólico al sur del trópico mexicano, investigamos la composición de especies de murciélagos, estimamos el número de cadáveres/turbina y evaluamos el efecto de los atributos espaciales de la vegetación que rodea a las turbinas sobre el número de cadáveres de murciélagos por gremio trófico. Registramos 29 especies de murciélagos en el parque, la familia Phyllostomidae fue la mejor representada en cuanto al número de especies e individuos capturados. Glossophaga soricina y G. morenoi fueron las especies con mayor abundancia relativa, mientras que Balantiopteryx plicata fue la especie con mayor actividad acústica. Se registraron 203 cadáveres de murciélagos en el parque eólico, el 35.9% pertenecían a Pteronotus davyi, otras especies frecuentes fueron Mormoops megalophylla, Molossus sinaloae y Lasiurus intermedius. El número total de cadáveres encontrado va de 17 a 83 (2012 y 2009 respectivamente), mientras que la estimación corregida va de 492–1,980, o 4.18–20.20 cadáveres/turbina. La cantidad de cadáveres estimada para los 5 años combinados es de 4,782. El área ocupada por vegetación secundaria alrededor de los aerogeneradores se relacionó significativa y positivamente con el número de cadáveres registrados. Nuestros resultados también indican que la ubicación de los aerogeneradores afecta de forma diferencial a las especies de murciélagos según sus gremios tróficos y uso de hábitat. Contrario a lo encontrado en parques eólicos de Estados Unidos y Canadá, los cadáveres de murciélagos registrados en el parque eólico tropical son de especies residentes, incluyendo aquellas que forman grandes colonias. Ya que algunas de las especies frecuentemente registradas en las redes y acústicamente, no fueron las que se encontraron frecuentemente en los cadáveres, sugerimos diversificar los métodos de monitoreo en estudios de pre-construcción para identificar las especies más vulnerables y tomar acciones que reduzcan el impacto sobre sus poblaciones.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".