Increasing canopy cover elevates vehicle collision risk for barbastelle bats (Barbastella barbastellus) at roads.

ABSTRACT: Roads can form barriers to movement and act as mortality sinks for bats. However, understanding flight behaviour over roads has been limited by reliance on human observers to characterise flight patterns. Moreover, both species-specific behaviour and the local environment may alter bat-road interactions. Using paired near-infrared cameras with 3-D tracking analysis, we reconstructed the flight trajectories of barbastelle bats (Barbastella barbastellus) at nine road sites in West Sussex, England. Of the 400 flight paths, 56% occurred at heights that placed bats at risk of vehicle collision, and this risk increased as bats flew closer to canopy cover. Increasing canopy cover was associated with bats flying along rather than across roads, and with faster flight speeds (by 0.14 ms^- 1

SUBMITTER: O'Malley KD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12549859 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature