I've been interested in bats since I went on a caving trip when I was about 10 and bought my first book about bats. I wa
TOTAL
THROUGH THE EYES OF A SCIENTIST
How will the eclipse ECLIPSE affect bats? AT M I ZZO U OUR BAT RESEARCHER
The experiment
My eclipse experiment studies the impact light has on bat behavior during the day.
Jordan Shroyer PhD student in the School of Natural Resources, advised by Dr. Charles Nilon
All bats in Missouri eat insects and are active at dusk and during the evening and dawn. The eclipse is a rare event during the middle of day that will replicate dusk. Will this be a long enough and dark enough period of time for bats to become active? If nocturnal insects are active, will bats be active, too?
Hypothesis: Bats will become active during the eclipse.
The research
I study urban bat populations — specifically, bats in Columbia, Missouri. My research aims to educate city planners and homeowners on the importance of bats and find ways to help bats thrive in our community. This is important because right now millions of bats are dying each year due to a highly contagious fungal infection called white nose disease. Many species are already endangered; many others are close. Bats are really important to agriculture and the ecosystem. They are a $1 billion money saver for farmers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates. They help control mosquitoes and other insect pests, like damaging moths and beetles. I’ve been interested in bats since I went on a caving trip when I was about 10 and bought my first book about bats. I was an outfielder on three different baseball teams when I was a kid, and I always liked watching the bats fly around during night games. For a few years, I left Missouri and helped count bat populations on the East Coast and taught science to students in South Korea. They loved learning about bats, too.
The setup
We will set up Anabat detectors at four locations where we know bats are active. We will do visual observations at two other locations. Anabat detectors can record and translate bats’ echolocation calls to a graph. We will be able to count the number and species of bats that were active during the eclipse time period.
Shroyer with a Big Brown (Eptesicus fuscus) bat pup rescued from an attic in Columbia, Missouri. Leave it to the professionals! The general public should not touch or handle any bats to avoid injury to the bat or themselves.
We will record the day before and the day after at the same locations during the same times so we have a comparison to the day of the eclipse. If bats do become active during the eclipse, it will open up other questions: • Was it the light alone that caused them to come out? • Would other kind of dark conditions during the day cause bats to become active — like wildfires in the West that darken the skies for many days? • Did the insects they feed on at night come out? • What experiments would help us figure out whether the light or the insects they feed on caused the bats to come out? Finding answers to these questions helps us figure out what factors signal to bats that it’s safe for them active.
