Celebrating Bat to the Bone Ecosystem Services

Bats are up this week and we’re celebrating the tons of harmful insects they eat, the flora they pollinate and fertilize, and the seeds they spread to help grow our plants.

More than half of bat species are still declining in the United States, and some are listed as endangered or threatened.

Any idea of what a bat-less world would look like…or feel like?

More mosquito bites. Less tequila to help cope with the itch. And not many mango, guava or Saguaros fruits in sight.  

So, for National Bat Week, we’re going to share the prized ecosystem services bats provide, offer a few tips that farmers, ranchers and forest landowners can use on their land to help increase bat habitat and build awareness around the top threat to bats survival.
 

Ecosystem Services:

Eating Harmful Insects
Bats help themselves to nearly one thousand insects per hour, including harmful vermin. They help reduce crop damage from pests, without the use of harsh chemicals that can flow downstream into local waterways. Bats save billions of dollars in pest control for American agriculture annually.

Pollinating and Fertilizing Vital Plants
More than 300 species of your favorite fruit, alone, depends on bat pollination. Bats carry pollen on their bodies and fur, enabling them to cross-pollinate and increase vital plant seeding. This helps increase plant variety and increases healthier yields. Bats spread their love in more ways than one, like its handy fertilizer droppings that’s spread throughout the environment after eating indigestible fruit seeds.

Tips for Farmers, Ranchers and Forest Landowners:

Enhance Forest Habitat
Include bats in your forest management plan. Tree removals during the dormant winter, tree thinning for diversity, or saving dead tree snags for roosting are just a few of the many forest practices that can help you improve roosting and foraging habitat for bats. For example, the northern long-eared bat favors cavities of dead tree snags to roost and open forests to forage.

Farmers across the nation work with NRCS to incorporate bat habitat into their land management goals. Photo by Preston Keres, USDA-FPAC

Build a Bat House
A bat house is another option you can offer bats as an alternative home. Natural bat habitat loss has caused a gap in roosting and rearing sites, contributing to reduced bat populations. Artificial structures like bat houses are helping to enhance roosting opportunities and offer bats suitable habitat. Areas with minimal disturbances, like large grassy patches, shrubby areas, or edges of woodlots are ideal habitats to host bat houses for increased bat habitat.

Plant Bat Food
Plant flowers that bloom in the evening to attract insects. This will offer bats a sanctuary where bats can come to forage. Some of their favorite flowers include evening primrose, four o’clocks, moonflower, and honeysuckle. Since insects are attracted to water, you can also add a small, open swoop zone so bats are able to fly in for a refreshing drink and bug soup from a nearby water source.
 

Top Threat to Bats’ Survival:

Ever heard of White-nose syndrome? Well, let’s say you’re a bat and while you are minding your own business, hibernating in your bed and saving your energy over the winter, this fungus infects your wings.

So now, your sleep is frequently disrupted, too early and too many times, which makes you exhausted and too tired to participate in life’s necessities that are critical to survival, like eating, so you starve.

 

Big brown bats hibernating on a cave wall to preserve their energy over the winter. USDA Forest Service Photo

 

That’s the plight of today’s bats and the major driver behind their dwindling population.

But bats would love to hang around longer, and their survival largely rests on the healthy management of working lands.

Farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners are working with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to implement conservation practices that incorporates bat-friendly activities to help provide healthy roosting and foraging habitat for bats and other important pollinator.

Conservation stewards are using financial and technical assistance from NRCS’  Environmental Quality Incentives Program to take steps towards enhancing bat habitat on their working land.

For more information on how you can manage your land for healthy bat habitat, please visit:  The Importance of Pollinators page.