Dados do Trabalho

TÍTULO

A BOTTOM-UP SYSTEM: EFFECT OF ARTIFICIAL LIGHTING ON BAT ACTIVITY IN URBAN PARKS

Resumo

With the expansion of cities, understanding the effects of artificial lighting on bat activity and how it structures communities is essential for the long-term maintenance of species in urban environments. Thus, we aimed to evaluate the effects of artificial lighting on bats in urban parks of the city of Brasília, Federal District, Brazil. For that, we sampled 46 sites distributed in six parks (22 placed under artificial lights and 24 control sites). Bat activity was verified via acoustic recordings using AUDIOMOTH recorders, and arthropod abundance was obtained by flight intercepting adhesive plates (25×50cm) installed in each sampling site. Structural Equation Models (SEM) were used to quantify the direct and indirect effect, via arthropod abundance, of artificial light on bat activity. We recorded 11,773 bat passes, 1,683 feeding buzzes and 3,953 individuals of arthropods in adhesive plates. SEM results indicated that artificial lighting affected the abundance of arthropods (p<0.01) but not bat activity (p=0.81) and feeding buzz call (p=0.54), which was only affected by arthropod abundance (p<0.01 for both). Our results suggest that artificial lighting poses a direct influence on arthropod abundance, thus indirectly affecting bat activity, presenting a bottom-up effect as it increase resource availability for bats.

Palavras-chave

Urban Ecosystems, Urban Environmental, Insect abundance; Bioacoustics  

Financiamento

1 - Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq (bolsa) 2 - Programa de PG em Ecologia/UnB - Projeto 0873/2018 - PROEX