The effects of urbanization on physiological indicators of welfare in bats

学生奖学金战略优先领域：生物多样性关键词：城市化，糖皮质激素，蝙蝠，指标，压力摘要：人口增长带来的土地利用变化对生物多样性提出了重大挑战（Grimm et al. 2008）。一些研究记录了城市化对野生动物的影响，原因包括栖息地丧失和破碎化，化学，光和噪音污染，宠物捕食和道路死亡率（Russo & Ancillotto 2015）。虽然城市化的某些方面具有直接的致命影响，但其他方面的影响则较为缓慢，或可能因年份或季节而异。例如，城市的高温可能会使某些物种受益，但在一年中的某些时间对其他物种不利（例如冬季的冬眠动物）。蝙蝠是城市环境中最多样化的哺乳动物群体之一（Jung & Threlfall 2016），但也是最受威胁的群体之一（Jones et al. 2009）。城市和农村栖息地的质量可能因化学、噪音和光污染、温度和热变化、干扰以及食物和水的获取而不同。一些蝙蝠物种在城市地区相对常见（例如欧洲的伏翼），并被描述为“城市适应者”。然而，最近的研究表明，即使是这些物种的活动也会随着城市化景观的增加而减少（Lintott et al. 2016）。这一机制尚不清楚;大多数蝙蝠对城市化反应的工作都集中在觅食和栖息模式上，很少有关于生理影响的信息。这位博士将使用一些新颖的和非侵入性的福利指标来比较城市和农村环境中蝙蝠野生和博物馆标本的生理压力水平，并结合栖息地建模。糖皮质激素是基线压力水平的常用指标，通常从血液中测定。然而，最近已经验证了非侵入性粪便糖皮质激素测量方法，以评估蝙蝠的慢性应激（Eptesicus isabellinus; Kelm et al. 2016）。糖皮质激素也可以从头发中提取，提供跟踪头发生长时期的激素分布。这将是在蝙蝠在该项目中首次进行。这个项目的目的是调查城市化对蝙蝠福利指标的影响。主要目标包括：1.验证蝙蝠福利的新生理指标2。测试糖皮质激素水平的变化沿着梯度增加城市化3。测试城市和农村人口之间蝙蝠毛皮中化学污染物特征的差异4。从栖息地的使用和组成建模人口增长，以告知保护和调查工作LG将调查这些问题在两个常见的英国蝙蝠物种，常见的伏翼（伏翼）和女高音伏翼（伏翼pygmaeus），以提供对蝙蝠城市下降的生理机制的见解。预计这项工作的结果将为土地所有者和决策者提供有关养护管理的信息。

Studentship strategic priority area: BiodiversityKeywords: Urbanization, glucocorticoids, bat, indicator, stressAbstract: Changes in land use from an increasing human population presents a major challenge for biodiversity (Grimm et al. 2008). Several studies have documented the impacts of urbanization on wildlife due to habitat loss and fragmentation, chemical, light and noise pollution, predation from pets and road mortality (Russo & Ancillotto 2015). While some aspects of urbanization have immediate lethal effects, others act more slowly or may vary between years or seasons. For example, urban heat might benefit some species, but be detrimental to others at certain times of the year (e.g. hibernators in winter).Bats are both one of the most diverse mammalian groups represented in urban environments (Jung & Threlfall 2016) but also one of the most threatened (Jones et al. 2009). Urban and rural roost sites are likely to differ in quality on the basis of chemical, noise and light pollution, temperature and thermal variability, disturbance and access to food and water. Some bat species are relatively common in urban areas (e.g. Pipistrellus pipistrellus in Europe), and have been described as 'urban-adaptors'. However, recent work has indicated that the activity of even these species decreases with increasingly urbanized landscapes (Lintott et al. 2016). The mechanism for this is unclear; most work on bat responses to urbanization has focused on foraging and roosting patterns with little information on physiological effects.This PhD will use a number of novel and non-invasive welfare indicators to compare levels of physiological stress in wild and museum specimens of bats from urban and rural environments in combination with habitat modelling. Glucocorticoids are commonly used indicators of baseline stress levels, and are generally assayed from blood. However, non-invasive faecal glucocorticoid measurements have recently been validated to assess chronic stress in a bat (Eptesicus isabellinus; Kelm et al. 2016). Glucocorticoids can also be extracted from hair, providing a hormone profile that tracks the period of hair growth. This will be carried out in bats for the first time in this project. The aim of this project is to investigate the effects of urbanization on indicators of welfare in bats. Key objectives include:1. Validating novel physiological indicators of welfare in bats2. Testing for variation in glucocorticoid levels along a gradient of increasing urbanization3. Testing for differences in the signature of chemical pollutants in bat fur between urban and rural populations4. Modeling population growth from habitat use and composition to inform conservation and survey effortLG will investigate these questions in two common UK bat species, the common pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) and soprano pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pygmaeus), to provide insights on the physiological mechanisms underlying urban declines in bats. It is anticipated that the findings of this work will inform landowners and policymakers on conservation management.