Bats and climate change

Climate change is affecting animal communities in many ways, and bats are no exception. Bats are especially sensitive to key factors associated with climate change, including temperature increases and altered precipitation patterns. Their sensitivity to temperature and water availability makes them particularly vulnerable to the changing climate. This talk will cover what is known about current responses of bats to climate change and what modeling exercises predict. It will address phenological responses, distributional changes, body size variation, and acute stress. The role of phenotypic plasticity and microevolution will also be considered in the context of bat responses to climate change, as well as how individual physiological responses may impact not only populations but also community structures. Finally, the talk will present the main structure and findings of the "ClimBats” COST Action, an international network devoted to exploring this topic and its implications for future impacts on ecosystem services, such as insectivory, in European agroecosystems.

Prof. Danilo Russo is a full professor of Ecology at Naples University Federico II, where he leads the Animal Ecology and Evolution Laboratory, and an honorary professor at the University of Bristol, UK. He obtained his PhD in Zoology from the University of Bristol. His research includes habitat selection, resource partitioning, sensory ecology, social behaviour, evolutionary biology, biogeography, and invasion ecology. His research focuses on bats, and other model organisms, to address specific questions of interest. From 2019 to 2023, he chaired the UNEP/EUROBATS Agreement’s Advisory Committee. Additionally, he has been the editor-in-chief of the top-rank zoological journal, Mammal Review (2016-23). Furthermore, he is the main proposer and has acted as the chair of the Management Committee for the EU COST Action "CLIMBATS" (CA18107), exploring climate change's effects on bat populations (2019-23). Prof. Russo published ca. 180 articles in high-profile journals such as Nature Communications, Current Biology, Ecology Letters, and Biological Reviews. He has done fieldwork across the globe, ranging from African rainforests to the Middle East desert and European beech forests.