Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science
Prioritization in conservation is crucial for the development of efficient and effective decision-making policies. For many decades, the importance of some species and their habitats has been assessed and applied in conservation legislation, but bats and their diurnal roosts have ofbeen overlooked....
| Authors: | ; ; ; ; ; ; |
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| Format: | Article |
| Publication date: | 2026 |
| Country: | España |
| Institution: | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| Repository: | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| Language: | English |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:uabarcelona_::7c9c9f2adf2b7d1afd29f1962f58dd85 |
| Online Access: | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/327914 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1111/cobi.70189 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Bat conservation Caves Chiroptera Citizen science Conservation planning Mines Overground roosts Underground roosts |
| _version_ | 1878733003300012032 |
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| author | López-Bosch, David|||0000-0002-6185-4902 |
| author2 | Tanalgo, Krizler Puig-Montserrat, Xavier Páramo, Ferran|||0000-0002-7534-3759 Marín, Eric Flaquer, Carles|||0000-0002-8618-9005 López-Baucells, Adrià|||0000-0001-8446-0108 |
| author2_role | author author author author author author |
| author_browse | Flaquer, Carles|||0000-0002-8618-9005 López-Baucells, Adrià|||0000-0001-8446-0108 López-Bosch, David|||0000-0002-6185-4902 Marín, Eric Puig-Montserrat, Xavier Páramo, Ferran|||0000-0002-7534-3759 Tanalgo, Krizler |
| author_facet | López-Bosch, David|||0000-0002-6185-4902 Tanalgo, Krizler Puig-Montserrat, Xavier Páramo, Ferran|||0000-0002-7534-3759 Marín, Eric Flaquer, Carles|||0000-0002-8618-9005 López-Baucells, Adrià|||0000-0001-8446-0108 |
| author_role | author |
| collection | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| description | Prioritization in conservation is crucial for the development of efficient and effective decision-making policies. For many decades, the importance of some species and their habitats has been assessed and applied in conservation legislation, but bats and their diurnal roosts have ofbeen overlooked. Several approaches have been used to categorize bat roosts based on their conservation importance. However, such assessments are often limited to expert-level assessments, are developed for specific regions, or do not consider long-term monitoring data from community science. We devised an index, the bat roost priority index (BRP), for prioritization of bat roosts for conservation in which community science and roost seasonality, uniqueness, and vulnerability are integrated. Using community data from 568 bat roosts, we applied the BRP to the 50 most well-sampled and compared the results with 3 other indices. We then examined the strengths and limitations of the different indices. We also used the BRP to define important bat conservation areas in specific regions in terms of underground and aboveground roosts, an important need and common request from policy makers. The BRP improved on previous prioritizations in that it classifies roosts based on biotic and vulnerability variables, provides a linear classification of all assessed roosts according to conservation action priority, and offers objective quantification of the threats affecting a roost. To illustrate the potential of the BRP, we defined important areas for bat conservation in Catalonia (Spain) based on the index. The BRP is available on the Bat Monitoring Programme online platform, where index values are calculated and shown for every registered bat roost. The BRP can be easily adapted and thus, has strong scalability potential for use with regional to continental datasets. |
| eu_rights_str_mv | openAccess |
| format | article |
| id | ES_4e2bd7b7e8633a64cd38c8b30b006422 |
| institution | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| instname_str | Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona |
| language | eng |
| network_acronym_str | ES |
| network_name_str | España |
| oai_identifier_str | oai:dnet:uabarcelona_::7c9c9f2adf2b7d1afd29f1962f58dd85 |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| reponame_str | Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB |
| spelling | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science López-Bosch, David|||0000-0002-6185-4902 Tanalgo, Krizler Puig-Montserrat, Xavier Páramo, Ferran|||0000-0002-7534-3759 Marín, Eric Flaquer, Carles|||0000-0002-8618-9005 López-Baucells, Adrià|||0000-0001-8446-0108 Bat conservation Caves Chiroptera Citizen science Conservation planning Mines Overground roosts Underground roosts Prioritization in conservation is crucial for the development of efficient and effective decision-making policies. For many decades, the importance of some species and their habitats has been assessed and applied in conservation legislation, but bats and their diurnal roosts have ofbeen overlooked. Several approaches have been used to categorize bat roosts based on their conservation importance. However, such assessments are often limited to expert-level assessments, are developed for specific regions, or do not consider long-term monitoring data from community science. We devised an index, the bat roost priority index (BRP), for prioritization of bat roosts for conservation in which community science and roost seasonality, uniqueness, and vulnerability are integrated. Using community data from 568 bat roosts, we applied the BRP to the 50 most well-sampled and compared the results with 3 other indices. We then examined the strengths and limitations of the different indices. We also used the BRP to define important bat conservation areas in specific regions in terms of underground and aboveground roosts, an important need and common request from policy makers. The BRP improved on previous prioritizations in that it classifies roosts based on biotic and vulnerability variables, provides a linear classification of all assessed roosts according to conservation action priority, and offers objective quantification of the threats affecting a roost. To illustrate the potential of the BRP, we defined important areas for bat conservation in Catalonia (Spain) based on the index. The BRP is available on the Bat Monitoring Programme online platform, where index values are calculated and shown for every registered bat roost. The BRP can be easily adapted and thus, has strong scalability potential for use with regional to continental datasets. https://ddd.uab.cat/record/327914 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1111/cobi.70189 |
| spellingShingle | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science López-Bosch, David|||0000-0002-6185-4902 Bat conservation Caves Chiroptera Citizen science Conservation planning Mines Overground roosts Underground roosts |
| title | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science |
| title_full | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science |
| title_fullStr | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science |
| title_full_unstemmed | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science |
| title_short | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science |
| title_sort | Prioritizing bat roosts for conservation with a global multicriteria bat roost priority index based on community science |
| topic | Bat conservation Caves Chiroptera Citizen science Conservation planning Mines Overground roosts Underground roosts |
| topic_facet | Bat conservation Caves Chiroptera Citizen science Conservation planning Mines Overground roosts Underground roosts |
| url | https://ddd.uab.cat/record/327914 https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1111/cobi.70189 |