Differential responses to woodland character and landscape context by cryptic bats in urban environments

© 2015 Lintott et al. Urbanisation is one of the most dramatic forms of land use change which relatively few species can adapt to. Determining how and why species respond differently to urban habitats is important in predicting future biodiversity loss as urban areas rapidly expand. Understanding how morphological or behavioural traits can influence species adaptability to the built environment may enable us to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Although many bat species are able to exploit human resources, bat species richness generally declines with increasing urbanisation and there is considerable variation in the responses of different bat species to urbanisation. Here, we use acoustic recordings from two cryptic, and largely sympatric European bat species to assess differential responses in their use of fragmented urban woodland and the surrounding urban matrix. There was a high probability of P. pygmaeus activity relative to P. pipistrellus in woodlands with low clutter and understory cover which were surrounded by low levels of built environment. Additionally, the probability of recording P. pygmaeus relative to P. pipistrellus was considerably higher in urban woodland interior or edge habitat in contrast to urban grey or non-wooded green space. These results show differential habitat use occurring between two morphologically similar species; whilst the underlying mechanism for this partitioning is unknown it may be driven by competition avoidance over foraging resources. Their differing response to urbanisation indicates the difficulties involved when attempting to assess how adaptable a species is to urbanisation for conservation purposes

Using incomplete floristic monitoring data from habitat mapping programmes to detect species trends

Aim: The loss of biodiversity has raised serious concerns about the entailing losses of ecosystem services. Here, we explore the potential of repeated habitat mapping data to identify floristic changes over time. Using one German federal state as a case study, we assessed floristic changes between the 1980s and 2010s. These habitat data have great potential for analysis because of their high spatial coverage while also posing methodological challenges such as incomplete observation data. We developed a modelling approach that accounts for incomplete observations and explored the ability to detect temporal trends. Location: The Federal State of Schleswig‐Holstein (Germany) Methods: We compiled plant species lists from the earliest (1980s) and most recent (2010s) habitat mapping survey and aligned differing habitat definitions across mapping campaigns. A total of 5,503 mapped polygons, each with a list of species records, intersected the two surveys. We accounted for underrecorded species by assigning occurrence probabilities, based on species co‐occurrence information across all surveys, using Beals' index and tested the robustness of this approach by simulation experiments. For those species with significant increases and decreases in occurrence probability, we linked these trends to the species' functional characteristics. Results: We found a systematic loss of species that are moderately threatened. Species that indicate low nitrogen supply and high soil moisture declined, suggesting a shift towards a more eutrophic and drier landscape. Importantly, assessing specific plant traits associated with losses, we also detected a decrease in species with reddish and blueish flowers and species providing nectar, pointing to a decrease of insect‐pollinated taxa. Main conclusions: The identified changes raise concerns that plant biodiversity has fundamentally changed over the last three decades, with concomitant consequences for ecosystem services, especially pollination. Given the general lack of historical standardized data, our approach for trend analyses using incomplete observation data may be widely applicable to assess long‐term biodiversity change

Homogeneous nucleation of water in synthetic air

Homogeneous nucleation rates for water vapor in synthetic air are measured by means of a Pulse-Expansion Wave Tube (PEWT). A comparison of the experimental nucleation rates with the Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT) shows that a more elaborated model is necessary to describe supercooled water nucleation at elevated pressures (10 bar). CNT is about 3 orders of magnitude off in case of our measurements. The overall trends, however, are predicted reasonably well by CNT. The size of the critical cluster (n*CNT) is predicted to be about 29 water molecules. The size of the critical cluster is obtained experimentally as well using the Nucleation Theorem. The result for water nucleation at a nucleation pressure of 10 bar and nucleation temperature of approximately 238 K is: n* = 21±1 water molecules

On the growth of homogeneously nucleated water droplets in nitrogen : an experimental study

A pulse-expansion wave tube method to determine homogeneous nucleation rates of water droplets has been improved. In particular, by accounting for background scattering, the experimental light scattering can be fitted extremely well with the Mie scattering theory. This results in an accurate determination of the droplet growth curve, which is well defined owing to the sharp monodispersity of the droplet cloud generated by the nucleation pulse method. With this method, water condensation is effectively decoupled in birth (nucleation) and growth of droplets. Droplet growth curves yield information on the diffusion coefficient, which only depends on pressure and temperature and on the supersaturation of the individual experiments. Here, we propose to use this information in the interpretation of nucleation rate data. Experimental results are given for homogeneous nucleation rates of supercooled water droplets at nucleation temperature 240 K and pressure 1.0 MPa and for growth of supercooled water droplets at temperature 247 K and pressure 1.1 MPa. The supersaturation was varied between 10 and 14, resulting in nucleation rates varying between 10 m s and 10 m s . For the diffusion coefficient, a value of 1.51 0.03 mm s was found (247 K, 1.1 MPa) in agreement with previously reported results. It is discussed how the information from droplet growth data can be used to assess the quality of the individual water nucleation experiments

Homogeneous nucleation of water in synthetic air

Homogeneous nucleation rates for water vapor in synthetic air are measured by means of a Pulse-Expansion Wave Tube (PEWT). A comparison of the experimental nucleation rates with the Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT) shows that a more elaborated model is necessary to describe supercooled water nucleation at elevated pressures (10 bar). CNT is about 3 orders of magnitude off in case of our measurements. The overall trends, however, are predicted reasonably well by CNT. The size of the critical cluster (n*CNT) is predicted to be about 29 water molecules. The size of the critical cluster is obtained experimentally as well using the Nucleation Theorem. The result for water nucleation at a nucleation pressure of 10 bar and nucleation temperature of approximately 238 K is: n* = 21±1 water molecules

Shape memory polymer thin films deposited by initiated chemical vapor deposition

No abstract

Testing the effectiveness of surveying techniques in determining bat community composition within woodland

Context Determining the biodiversity of an area is essential for making targeted conservation decisions. Undertaking surveys to confirm species presence or to estimate population sizes can be difficult, particularly for elusive species. Bats are able to detect and avoid traps, making it difficult to quantify abundance. Although acoustic surveys using bat detectors are often used as a surrogate for relative abundance, the implicit assumption that there is a positive correlation between activity levels and abundance is rarely tested. Aims We assessed the effectiveness of surveying techniques (i.e. Trapping and acoustic monitoring) for detecting species presence and tested the strength of collinearity among methods. In addition, we tested whether the use of an acoustic lure (a bat-call synthesiser) increased bat-capture rate and therefore species detectability. Methods Surveying was carried out over 3 years in central Scotland (UK), in 68 woodlands within predominantly agricultural or urban landscapes. Key results There was a significant positive relationship between bat activity recorded on ultrasonic detectors and the relative abundance of Pipistrellus pygmaeus and P. pipistrellus, but not those in the genus Myotis. In general, acoustic monitoring was more effective than trapping at determining species presence; however, to ensure rarer or quiet species are recorded, a complementary approach is required. Broadcasting four different types of echolocation call resulted in a 2-12-fold increase in trapping success across four species of insectivorous bat found in the study region. Whereas lure effectiveness remained unchanged for female P. pygmaeus over time, there was a marked increase in the number of males captured using the lure throughout the summer (May to September). Conclusions In the present study, we have demonstrated a variety of ways to increase surveying efficiency, which can maximise the knowledge of diversity in an area, minimise wildlife disturbance, and enhance surveying effectiveness. Implications Increasing surveying efficiency can improve the accuracy of targeted conservation decisions. Journal compilation © CSIRO 2013