How will greening the desert affect bats and the ecosystem services they provide?

了解人类介导的土地覆盖变化如何影响物种及其提供的生态系统服务是人类世生物多样性保护的主要挑战。灌溉和水运技术使大型人类住区和商业农业得以扩展到干旱环境，导致沙漠“绿化”。这一过程为沙漠野生动物提供了替代的觅食栖息地、猎物和水源，并增加了景观的连通性。然而，它也促进了不适应干旱环境的多面手物种的殖民化。这些环境变化可能给沙漠野生动物留下了印记，影响了它们的营养生态和运动行为。对人为变化的反应可以通过研究生物体的肠道菌群来推断，因为它对环境变化有快速的适应性反应[1]。景观连通性影响运动，从而影响遗传结构；因此，通过研究遗传变异的空间格局，我们可以了解绿化过程如何影响物种的运动模式[10]。食虫蝙蝠是沙漠哺乳动物生物多样性的主要贡献者，通过抑制害虫种群和运输营养物质提供重要的生态系统服务。该项目将测试沙漠的人为绿化如何影响沙漠蝙蝠的运动模式和微生物群，以及它们提供的生态系统服务。

Understanding how human-mediated land cover changes affect species and the ecosystem services they provide is a major challenge for biodiversity conservation in the Anthropocene. Irrigation and water transportation techniques have enabled the spread of large human settlements and commercial agriculture into arid environments, resulting in the 'greening' of the desert. This process has provided alternative foraging habitats, prey and water sources for desert wildlife and increased landscape connectivity. However, it also facilitated colonisation by generalist species not adapted to xeric environments. These environmental changes likely left a signature on desert wildlife, affecting both their nutritional ecology and movement behaviour. Responses to anthropogenic changes can be inferred through studying the organism's gut microbiota due to its rapid adaptive responses to environmental variation[1]. Landscape connectivity affects movement and consequently genetic structure; hence, through studying spatial patterns of genetic variation we can understand how the greening process affected species movement patterns[2]. Insectivorous bats are major contributors to desert mammalian biodiversity that provide important ecosystems services through the suppression of insect pest populations and transportation of nutrients[3]. This project will test how anthropogenic greening of the desert has affected the movement patterns and microbiota of desert bats and the ecosystem services they provide.