Bats and Birds in Natural and Semi-Natural Ecosystems
Tropical and Mediterranean Biodiversity - TMB

Adrià López Baucells

External Collaborator

Bats Chiroptera Bioacoustics Forest fragmentation Conservation Applied ecology Connectivity Deforestation Neotropics Amazon

Adrià López-Baucells is conducting a Ph.D. in Ecology by the University of Lisbon starting in 2014 within the Tropical and Mediterranean Biodiversity Group of cE3c. He is conducting the project: "Assessment of the long-term effects of forest fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bats in the Amazonian rainforest using autonomous ultrasound recording stations", under the supervision of Dr. Christoph Meyer and Prof. Jorge Palmeirim from the University of Lisbon. Adrià López-Baucells Ph.D. project aims are:


1. Establish a reference library of the echolocation calls of the aerial insectivorous bats from the region, describing standard call parameters to aid in future species identifications.

2. Compare general patterns of aerial insectivorous bat activity, species richness, diversity, and ensemble composition in forest fragments and control plots between 1996-99 and 2011-2014 (long-term comparison).

3. Compare the effectiveness and suitability of a stationary, autonomous recording system with conventional transect-based acoustic sampling for monitoring of aerial insectivorous bats. Improve the protocol to minimize effort and cost of insectivorous bat monitoring.

4. Assess how aerial insectivorous bats respond to forest edges across continuous forest edges.