Data from: Trait-dependant tolerance of bats to urbanisation: a global meta-analysis

Urbanization is a severe threat to global biodiversity, often leading to taxonomic and functional homogenization. However, current urban ecology research has focused mostly on urban birds and plants, limiting our ability to make generalisations about the drivers of urban biodiversity globally. To address this gap, we conducted a global meta-analysis of 87 studies, including 180 bat species (Chiroptera) from urban areas in Asia, Australia, Europe, North & South America. We aimed to 1) understand the importance of functional traits and phylogeny in driving changes in urban bat assemblages, and 2) assess the capacity of traits for predicting which types of species are most sensitive to urbanization. Our results indicate that species-specific functional traits explain differences in the intensity of urban habitat use. Urban tolerance mainly occurred within the open and edge space foraging and trawling species as well as in bats with flexible roosting strategies. In addition, across bioregions and independent of phylogeny, urban tolerance correlated with higher aspect ratio, a trait enabling fast flight but less agile maneuvers during aerial food acquisition. Predictive success varied between bioregions, however yielded in a range between 43-83 %. Our analysis demonstrates that the local extinction of bat species in urban areas is non-random, trait-based and predictable, allowing urban landscape managers to tailor local conservation actions to particular types of species.

城市化是全球生物多样性面临的严峻威胁之一，往往会引发分类学与功能层面的均质化效应。然而当前城市生态学研究大多聚焦于城市鸟类与植物类群，这限制了我们对全球范围内城市生物多样性驱动因素开展普适性推断的能力。为填补这一研究空白，我们针对87项相关研究开展了一项全球性荟萃分析，涵盖了来自亚洲、澳大利亚、欧洲、南北美洲城市区域的180个蝙蝠物种（翼手目 Chiroptera）。本研究旨在达成两个目标：其一，解析功能性状与系统发育对城市蝙蝠群落变化的驱动作用；其二，评估利用性状预测哪些物种对城市化最为敏感的能力。研究结果显示，物种特异性功能性状能够解释不同类群对城市生境利用强度的差异。城市耐受性主要集中于兼具开阔空间与边缘空间觅食习性、采用拖网捕食策略的蝙蝠类群，以及具备灵活栖息策略的蝙蝠类群。此外，在不同生物地理区域内且不依赖系统发育背景的情况下，城市耐受性与更高的展弦比（aspect ratio）呈正相关——该性状可支持快速飞行，但会降低空中捕食时的动作灵活性。不过不同生物地理区域的预测准确率存在差异，其范围为43%至83%。本研究分析表明，城市区域内蝙蝠物种的局部灭绝并非随机事件，而是基于性状特征且可预测的，这使得城市景观管理者能够针对特定类群制定个性化的本地保护措施。