The effects of urbanization on physiological indicators of welfare in bats

摘要：人口增长导致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，包括栖息地的丧失和破碎化、化学、光和噪音污染、宠物的捕食和道路死亡（Russo & Ancillotto 2015）。虽然城市化的某些方面具有直接的致命影响，但其他方面的作用更为缓慢，或可能在不同年份或季节之间有所不同。例如，城市的热量可能对某些物种有益，但在一年中的某些时候（例如冬季冬眠）对其他物种有害。蝙蝠是城市环境中最多样化的哺乳动物群体之一（Jung & Threlfall 2016），也是最受威胁的哺乳动物之一（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、干扰以及获得食物和水的途径而不同。一些蝙蝠种类在城市地区相对常见（例如欧洲的Pipistrellus Pipistrellus），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）。其机制尚不清楚；大多数关于蝙蝠对城市化反应的研究都集中在觅食和栖息模式上，很少有关于生理影响的信息。本博士将使用一些新颖的非侵入性福利指标，结合栖息地建模，比较来自城市和农村环境的野生和博物馆蝙蝠标本的生理应激水平。糖皮质激素是常用的基线应激水平指标，通常从血液中检测。然而，非侵入性粪便糖皮质激素测量最近已被验证用于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，提供一种跟踪头发生长时期的激素谱。这将在本项目中首次在蝙蝠身上进行。该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。新型蝙蝠福利生理指标的验证[j]。糖皮质激素水平随城市化梯度变化的检测。城市和农村人口蝙蝠皮毛中化学污染物特征差异的检测通过生境利用和组成对种群增长进行建模，为保护和调查工作提供信息。我们将在英国两种常见的蝙蝠物种——普通pipistrelus （pipistrelus pipistrelus）和女声pipistrelus （pipistrelus pygmaeus）中研究这些问题，以深入了解蝙蝠在城市数量下降的生理机制。预计这项工作的结果将为土地所有者和决策者提供有关保护管理的信息。

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.