Berlin's bright sky isn't great for bats
People can hardly imagine a city without night-time street lighting. But how do nocturnal animals such as bats respond to the illuminated urban landscape? In a recent study, scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), together with German and international colleagues, equipped common noctule bats (Nyctalus noctula) with mini GPS transmitters and recorded their trajectories in the sky above Berlin. They show that common noctules avoid brightly lit, built-up areas. The metropolitan area of Berlin is therefore mostly unsuitable as a habitat for bats. Dark corridors such as city forests, parks or watercourses, on the other hand, are of great importance for commuting and foraging. The results are published in the journal Landscape Ecology.