Analyzing the effects of environmental conditions on bat activity

As global warming accelerates and continues to reshape regional climates, changes in local weather patterns, such as rising temperatures, irregular rainfalls, and random forest fires, can profoundly alter bat behavior, foraging patterns, and migration timing, affecting the overall health of the entire bat communities. Therefore, understanding which environmental conditions have an impact on bat activity, and to what extent, is critical to developing effective conservation strategies in one region.

With the Union Bay Natural Area at the University of Washington as a research site, using bat echolocation call detections from the UBNA passive acoustic monitoring program, meteorological data from the University of Washington weather station, and lunar phase data from NASA, the project aims to find the environmental factors that influence bat activity and explore the effects of extreme stormy weather on local bat emergence through statistical testing and inference.

Funding: UW Royalty Research Fund