The importance of residential swimming pools as an urban water source for bats

Abstract

Habitat loss has caused bat populations to decline globally and urbanization represents a major contributor to this loss. Yet, recent studies have indicated that urban parks can support a diverse and abundant bat community. These anthropogenically dominated areas must be providing readily available, potentially unconventional, resources. Identifying such resources could therefore give insight into how we can effectively improve urban habitat for bats. Thus, we investigated the use of residential swimming pools by bats as a water resource in behavioral surveys. We also used acoustic activity to determine species presence and identify trends in activity. We recorded 274 bats drinking at swimming pools from April to September 2016. We also acoustically identified all species present in the area. Furthermore, among pools closest to the park (< 200 m), bats only drank as the summer progressed, which corresponded to more ???natural??? sources in the park becoming less accessible. The quality of swimming pools may dictate their use and if we can identify features that influence quality, these insights may be used to improve resource availability for urban bats.