Characterization of bat movement patterns to inform the decision-making process about the potential risks of local wind energy developments on bat populations

在过去的十年里，可能没有其他哺乳类动物像食虫蝙蝠那样经历了长期生存能力面临的同样程度的风险。这些人口面临的主要威胁之一是发电的风力涡轮机设施。许多风力发电厂的涡轮机杀死了大量的蝙蝠，每年有成千上万的蝙蝠被这些设施杀死。人们主要担心的是该物种承受这些死亡影响的能力。从物种类型来看，那些每年进行长距离迁徙的蝙蝠（如白毛、红毛和银毛蝙蝠）最容易受到风力发电场发展的影响，因为它们占死亡人数的最大比例。然而，大量进行短途迁徙的蝙蝠也被杀死（例如，冬眠的全年居住的蝙蝠物种，如小棕色和北方长耳蝙蝠）。到目前为止，北美已经就这个问题进行了大量的研究，但大多数工作都是在拟议的或实际的地点（即地方规模）进行的，以响应环境影响评估过程的监管要求。要证明这种方法是正确的，必须做出许多有问题的假设。该行业需要的一个主要信息缺口是对温带地区全年居住蝙蝠的区域运动模式的描述。因此，这个项目的目标是通过填补这个信息缺口来帮助工业界。我们将追踪每只蝙蝠的基因特征和种群结构，以便决策者更好地了解在特定地区建立风力发电场的潜在风险。我们相信，该项目的结果将使工业界了解蝙蝠在不同距离和不同路径上的运动频率和分布，从而使他们能够更有效地规划绿色能源发展，以实现政府的目标。

In the past decade there are probably no other group of mammals experiencing the same level of risk to their long term viability as the insectivorous bats. One of the main threats to these populations are electricity- generating wind turbine facilities. Turbines on many wind farms are killing large numbers of bats such that annually many thousands of bats are killed by these facilities. There are major concerns about the ability of the species to withstand the impacts of these mortalities. By species type, it seems that those that undergo long -distance annual migrations (e.g., hoary, red and silver-haired bats) are most vulnerable to wind farm developments as they make up the largest proportion of the mortalities. However, a significant number of bats that undertake short-distance migrations are also killed (e.g., the year- round resident bat species that hibernate such as little brown and northern long-eared bats). To this point there has been a large amount of research done in North America on the issue but most of this work has been conducted at proposed or actual sites (i.e., local scale) in response to the regulatory requirements of the environmental impact assessment process. There are a number of questionable assumptions that have to be made to justify this approach. A major information gap that is required by the industry, is a characterization of the regional movement patterns of year-round resident bats of temperate areas. Hence, the goal of this project is to assist industry by filling this information gap. We will track individual bats and genetically characterize population structure to give decision-makers a better understanding of the potential risks of locating wind farms in particular areas. We believe that the results of this project will inform industry about the frequency and distribution of bat movements over different distances and along different pathways and therefore permit more efficient planning of their green energy developments to meet government targets.