Bat Conservation: Global evidence for the effects of interventions

This volume, Bat Conservation, is the fifth in the Synopses of Conservation Evidence series and it is linked to the online resource – www.conservationevidence.com. Other editions in the series include Bee, Bird, Farmland and Amphibian Conservation. This is an excellent review with synopses of ecology practices and implementation for bat conservation which covers cases across continents. It is likely to be of interest to practitioners and students who would like to see evidence of plans and actions. Other editions for different species groups and habitats in this series of Conservation Evidence will be published by Pelagic Publishing. -- Alan Linsdell * Mammal News * This book presents what conservation evidence exists about bats, their threats and conservation measures. Interventions are listed as one of 12 specific topics. For example, there are six different interventions for ‘human disturbance – caving and tourism’ ((e.g. maintain micro-climate, use of cave gates, etc.). Each intervention is assessed to gauge if evidence exists to substantiate effects. It provides a stark insight into the lack of scientific research (or survey work that remains unpublished) about how humans affect bats. This publication also serves as a useful ‘wake-up call’ to bat surveyors and researchers, identifying which interventions are lacking scientific evidence. This is very helpful in directing future bat research. Quite often though, ecological judgements have to be made without adequate scientific evidence. In practice, these will be made with whatever knowledge is available, whether this is from academia or informed by non-academic findings or surveys. Due to the book's strong scientific research content, I found this book quite ‘dry’, but it certainly delivers what it aims to achieve. The small font gives a ‘text heavy’ appearance (for an A5 sized book). Relevant illustrations or photos could have helped to break-up text on specific topics where there are good examples for the evidence of effects. As a result, this book would appear more suitable for university students. However, I would buy this book as a very useful base-line reference source for bat conservation. Pelagic Publishing is congratulated in taking forward publications to the benefit of the bat community. -- David Patterson * Scottish Bats * The book is aimed at land managers and practical conservationists, with 10 chapters devoted to particular categories of threats to bats (agriculture, wind turbines, pollution, fire, etc.), within which specific dangers are addressed (including all the ‘usual suspects’ such as pesticides, artificial lighting and disturbance to hibernacula for example). For each threat, the various widely suggested mitigations are listed, then the literature has been scanned to find robust evidence for whether or not they were effective. There are no words wasted here in the very business-like text. This disciplined approach is welcome and perhaps long overdue, given the resources that have been poured into bat conservation over the past 30 years. -- Pat Morris * Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society *