Dataset Information

Rapid increases in bat activity and diversity after wetland construction in an urban ecosystem.

ABSTRACT: Wetland construction can mitigate the biodiversity and water quality losses associated with reduced natural wetland coverage. While beneficial effects of wetland construction for bats have been observed in natural and rural settings, the effects of wetland construction on bats in an urban ecosystem are less understood. We used passive acoustic monitoring to measure bat activity levels and diversity at two constructed wetlands and two control sites on the University of North Carolina Greensboro campus, in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA. We monitored all 4 sites before and after wetland construction. Pre-wetland construction, there were few differences in bat activity and community structure at our sites. After wetland construction, we observed greater activity, attributable to all species we recorded, at wetland sites compared to control sites. Species diversity and species richness were also higher at wetland sites compared to control sites. When comparing the same sites before and after wetland construction, both bat activity and species richness increased after construction, but the effects were seen in Winter and not Spring. Our results demonstrate that bats use constructed wetlands in urban ecosystems similarly to other habitat settings. Increases in bat activity, diversity, and species richness occurred within one year of wetland construction.

SUBMITTER: Parker KA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6764773 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Rapid increases in bat activity and diversity after wetland construction in an urban ecosystem.

Parker Kevin A KA Springall Brian T BT Garshong Reuben A RA Malachi Ashley N AN Dorn Lauren E LE Costa-Terryll Alicia A Mathis Rachael A RA Lewis Alayna N AN MacCheyne Cassandra L CL Davis Tronjay T TT Rice Alexis D AD Varh Nyla Y NY Li Han H Schug Malcolm D MD Kalcounis-Rueppell Matina C MC

Wetlands (Wilmington, N.C.) 20181128 4

Wetland construction can mitigate the biodiversity and water quality losses associated with reduced natural wetland coverage. While beneficial effects of wetland construction for bats have been observed in natural and rural settings, the effects of wetland construction on bats in an urban ecosystem are less understood. We used passive acoustic monitoring to measure bat activity levels and diversity at two constructed wetlands and two control sites on the University of North Carolina Greensboro c ...[more]

PMID: 31564763

Similar Datasets

Project description:Wetlands support unique biota and provide important ecosystem services. These services are highly threatened due to the rate of loss and relative rarity of wetlands in most landscapes, an issue that is exacerbated in highly modified urban environments. Despite this, critical ecological knowledge is currently lacking for many wetland-dependent taxa, such as insectivorous bats, which can persist in urban areas if their habitats are managed appropriately. Here, we use a novel paired landscape approach to investigate the role of wetlands in urban bat conservation and examine local and landscape factors driving bat species richness and activity. We acoustically monitored bat activity at 58 urban wetlands and 35 nonwetland sites (ecologically similar sites without free-standing water) in the greater Melbourne area, southeastern Australia. We analyzed bat species richness and activity patterns using generalized linear mixed-effects models. We found that the presence of water in urban Melbourne was an important driver of bat species richness and activity at a landscape scale. Increasing distance to bushland and increasing levels of heavy metal pollution within the waterbody also negatively influenced bat richness and individual species activity. Areas with high levels of artificial night light had reduced bat species richness, and reduced activity for all species except those adapted to urban areas, such as the White-striped free-tailed bat (Austronomus australis). Increased surrounding tree cover and wetland size had a positive effect on bat species richness. Our findings indicate that wetlands form critical habitats for insectivorous bats in urban environments. Large, unlit, and unpolluted wetlands flanked by high tree cover in close proximity to bushland contribute most to the richness of the bat community. Our findings clarify the role of wetlands for insectivorous bats in urban areas and will also allow for the preservation, construction, and management of wetlands that maximize conservation outcomes for urban bats and possibly other wetland-dependent and nocturnal fauna.

Project description:Plant invasions result in biodiversity losses and altered ecological functions, though quantifying loss of multiple ecosystem functions presents a research challenge. Plant phylogenetic diversity correlates with a range of ecosystem functions and can be used as a proxy for ecosystem multifunctionality. Laurentian Great Lakes coastal wetlands are ideal systems for testing invasive species management effects because they support diverse biological communities, provide numerous ecosystem services, and are increasingly dominated by invasive macrophytes. Invasive cattails are among the most widespread and abundant of these taxa. We conducted a three-year study in two Great Lakes wetlands, testing the effects of a gradient of cattail removal intensities (mowing, harvest, complete biomass removal) within two vegetation zones (emergent marsh and wet meadow) on plant taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity. To evaluate native plant recovery potential, we paired this with a seed bank emergence study that quantified diversity metrics in each zone under experimentally manipulated hydroperiods. Pretreatment, we found that wetland zones had distinct plant community composition. Wet meadow seed banks had greater taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity than emergent marsh seed banks, and high-water treatments tended to inhibit diversity by reducing germination. Aboveground harvesting of cattails and their litter increased phylogenetic diversity and species richness in both zones, more than doubling richness compared to unmanipulated controls. In the wet meadow, harvesting shifted the community toward an early successional state, favoring seed bank germination from early seral species, whereas emergent marsh complete removal treatments shifted the community toward an aquatic condition, favoring floating-leaved plants. Removing cattails and their litter increased taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity across water levels, a key environmental gradient, thereby potentially increasing the multifunctionality of these ecosystems. Killing invasive wetland macrophytes but leaving their biomass in situ does not address their underlying mechanism of dominance and is less effective than more intensive treatments that also remove their litter.

Project description:Wetland soils are one of the largest natural contributors to the emission of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Currently, microbial contributions to methane emissions from these systems emphasize the roles of acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic methanogens, while less frequently considering methyl-group substrates (e.g., methanol and methylamines). Here, we integrated laboratory and field experiments to explore the potential for methylotrophic methanogenesis in Old Woman Creek (OWC), a temperate freshwater wetland located in Ohio, USA. We first demonstrated the capacity for methylotrophic methanogenesis in these soils using laboratory soil microcosms amended with trimethylamine. However, subsequent field porewater nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analyses to identify methanogenic substrates failed to detect evidence for methylamine compounds in soil porewaters, instead noting the presence of the methylotrophic substrate methanol. Accordingly, our wetland soil-derived metatranscriptomic data indicated that methanol utilization by the Methanomassiliicoccaceae was the likely source of methylotrophic methanogenesis. Methanomassiliicoccaceae relative contributions to mcrA transcripts nearly doubled with depth, accounting for up to 8% of the mcrA transcripts in 25-cm-deep soils. Longitudinal 16S rRNA amplicon and mcrA gene surveys demonstrated that Methanomassiliicoccaceae were stably present over 2 years across lateral and depth gradients in this wetland. Meta-analysis of 16S rRNA sequences similar (>99%) to OWC Methanomassiliicoccaceae in public databases revealed a global distribution, with a high representation in terrestrial soils and sediments. Together, our results demonstrate that methylotrophic methanogenesis likely contributes to methane flux from climatically relevant wetland soils.IMPORTANCE Understanding the sources and controls on microbial methane production from wetland soils is critical to global methane emission predictions, particularly in light of changing climatic conditions. Current biogeochemical models of methanogenesis consider only acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic sources and exclude methylotrophic methanogenesis, potentially underestimating microbial contributions to methane flux. Our multi-omic results demonstrated that methylotrophic methanogens of the family Methanomassiliicoccaceae were present and active in a freshwater wetland, with metatranscripts indicating that methanol, not methylamines, was the likely substrate under the conditions measured here. However, laboratory experiments indicated the potential for other methanogens to become enriched in response to trimethylamine, revealing the reservoir of methylotrophic methanogenesis potential residing in these soils. Collectively, our approach used coupled field and laboratory investigations to illuminate metabolisms influencing the terrestrial microbial methane cycle, thereby offering direction for increased realism in predictive process-oriented models of methane flux in wetland soils.

Dataset Information

Rapid increases in bat activity and diversity after wetland construction in an urban ecosystem.

Publications

Rapid increases in bat activity and diversity after wetland construction in an urban ecosystem.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets