Valuing ecosystem services provided by UK bats under climate change

Given the stark anthropogenically-driven global decline of biodiversity, there is an urgent need to understand nature's contribution to people and how it will be affected by biodiversity decline. Bats are thought to provide important ecosystem services through the suppression of insect pest populations. Molecular approaches have revealed the consumption of a variety of insect pest species by bats [e.g. 1]. However, the actual economic contribution of these pest control services has only been evaluated for one bat species and one crop pest in the USA [2]. In the UK, lack of knowledge about the ecosystem services provided by bats and their economic value is hampering advocacy for bat conservation and engagement of the agricultural and forestry sectors in their conservation. Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide. Bats are predicted to experience range contractions and distributional changes under future climate change [3], but little is known about how these range changes will interact with insect pest distribution changes and affect future pest control services. This interdisciplinary project combines ecological, molecular, modelling and economic approaches to quantify the ecosystem services provided by UK bats and predict how they will be impacted by future climate change. Through working with our CASE partner, the Bat Conservation Trust, and our collaborative partner, Natural England, and linking to a cross-European COST Action Network on climate change and bats, this project will provide the evidence-base for bat conservation advocacy.