Use of lamplit roads by foraging bats in southern England |
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| Authors: | D. Blake A. M. Hutson P. A. Racey J. Rydell J. R. Speakman |
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| Affiliation: | Department of Zoology, University of Aberdeen, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen AB9 2TN;The Bat Conservation Trust, The London Ecology Centre, 45 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9HJ |
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| Abstract: | Roads illuminated by white streetlamps attracted three times more foraging bats (mostly Pipistrellus pipistrellus ) than did roads lit by orange streetlamps or unlit roads (3.2, 1.2 and 0.7 bat passes/km, respectively). More insects flew around white lamps than around orange lamps (mean 0.67 and 0.083 insects per lamp, respectively). The mean number of bat passes recorded in any 1-km section of road was positively correlated to the number of white streetlamps along the section, and also, independently, to the amount of trees and hedgerows. Bat activity was not related to the number of houses along the road, ambient temperature or cloud cover. The attractive effect of the lamps on the bats was diminished in windy weather. |
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