ArticleEcology2023
Bats reduce insect density and defoliation in temperate forests: An exclusion experiment.
Article in Ecology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Thermoregulatory strategies in the heat varies among Australian insectivorous bats.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Assessing direct effects of insect change on insectivore populations in the United Kingdom.Biodiversity and conservation · 2026Article
- Article
- Evidence for bottom-up effects of moth abundance on forest birds in the north-boreal zone alone.Ecology letters · 2024Article
- Winter diet of bats in working forests of the southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Sexual dichromatism in the fur of a bat: An exploration of color differences and potential signaling functions.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- All-you-can-eat buffet: A spider-specialized bat species (Myotis emarginatus) turns into a pest fly eater around cattle.PloS one · 2024Article
- Exploring People's Perception on Pros and Cons of Human-Bat Coexistence in Urban Environs in Southwestern Nigeria.Environmental health insights · 2024Article
- Prevalence and severity of alopecia lesions on gray bats, Myotis grisescens, peaks during lactation.PloS one · 2024Article
- Bats reduce insect density and defoliation in temperate forests: An exclusion experiment.Ecology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Bats suppress insect populations in agricultural ecosystems, yet the question of whether bats initiate trophic cascades in forests is mainly unexplored. We used a field experiment to test the hypothesis that insectivorous bats reduce defoliation through the top-down suppression of forest-defoliating insects. We excluded bats from 20 large, subcanopy forest plots (opened daily to allow birds access), each paired with an experimental control plot, during three summers between 2018 and 2020 in the central hardwood region of the United States. We monitored leaf area changes and insect density for nine to 10 oak or hickory seedlings per plot. Insect density was three times greater on seedlings in bat-excluded versus control plots. Additionally, seedling defoliation was five times greater with bats excluded, and bats' impact on defoliation was three times greater for oaks than for hickories. We show that insectivorous bats drive top-down trophic cascades, play an integral role in forest ecosystems, and may ultimately influence forest health, structure, and composition. This work demonstrates insectivorous bats' ecological and economic value and the importance of conserving this highly imperiled group of predators.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.