Christian C Voigt

• Professor
• Head of Department at Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research

Vocalizations are of pivotal importance for many animals, yet sound propagation in air is severely limited. To expand their vocalization range, animals can produce high-intensity sounds, which can come at high energetic costs. High-intensity echolocation is thought to have evolved in bats because the costs of calling are reported to be negligible d...

We review how different bat guilds respond to artificial light at night (ALAN) and assess how the impacts can vary according to ecological context. All studied European species respond negatively to ALAN close to roosts and drinking sites, and impacts occur across a wide range of light colours and intensities. Most bat species are sensitive to ALAN...

Many countries are investing heavily in wind power generation,1 triggering a high demand for suitable land. As a result, wind energy facilities are increasingly being installed in forests,2,3 despite the fact that forests are crucial for the protection of terrestrial biodiversity.4 This green-green dilemma is particularly evident for bats, as most...

The global demand for renewable energy has led to an expansion of wind energy production at forested sites. The deployment and operation of turbines requires the clearing of forest areas, resulting in significant habitat changes. To assess the consequences of these changes for forest-associated bats, we measured the acoustic activity of three forag...

Wind energy production is growing rapidly worldwide in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, wind energy production is not environmentally neutral. Negative impacts on volant animals, such as bats, include fatalities at turbines and habitat loss due to land-use change and displacement. Siting turbines away from ecologically sensiti...

Ecosystem services provided by insectivorous bats are an important yet underappreciated economic benefit of biodiversity. To investigate what is needed to maintain these services, we asked whether bat-mediated ecosystem services depend on near-natural areas adjacent to farmland. We used high-throughput tracking and genetic sequencing to determine t...

The tropical bat Mops plicatus feeds primarily on planthoppers, a major pest for rice farmers in Southeast Asia. This bat may help limit the spread of planthoppers by feeding on wind-dispersed individuals at high altitudes, providing an important ecosystem service. However, its foraging behavior during peak planthopper activity remains poorly under...

Laypeople often struggle to understand the provisional nature of scientific knowledge. While scientific knowledge may be widely accepted within the scientific community, it is continually subject to revision and further development as new studies are published. These characteristics of science, where findings build upon each other over time rather...

As obligate nocturnal mammals, most bats spend the day hiding in dark shelters, sometimes as gregarious colonies. Roosting in such large colonies may have the advantage of reducing thermoregulatory costs, as the heat dissipated by thousands of bodies raises the temperature of the cave interior. However, bats in large aggregations may also suffer fr...

Wind turbines used to combat climate change pose a green-green dilemma when endangered and protected wildlife species are killed by collisions with rotating blades. Here, we investigated the geographic origin of bats killed by wind turbines along an east-west transect in France to determine the spatial extent of this conflict in Western Europe. We...

Bats depend on water for drinking and foraging, but the increasing number of wind turbines may pose a problem for bats, as operating wind turbines are known to displace bats over long distances. We asked whether turbines displace bats from critical habitats, namely small ponds where bats drink and forage. We recorded the acoustic activity and forag...

Urbanisation generally leads to a loss of taxonomic and functional diversity in almost all animal taxa, yet a mosaic of highly variable habitats within the urban matrix could offer a diversity of insect prey to highly mobile predators such as bats. We therefore asked if insect-feeding bats change in trophic interactions along rural–urban gradients....

Die ambitionierten Energiewendeziele für Deutschland werden zu einem verstärkten Ausbau von Windenergieanlagen in Wäldern führen. Auf Basis eines Literaturüberblicks verdeutlicht dieser Beitrag zunächst, dass dadurch negative ökologische Auswirkungen auf Tiergruppen im Wald auftreten können, insbesondere durch Lebensraumveränderungen, Kollisionen m...

Windkraftanlagen sind wichtig, um die Klimaziele zu erreichen. Jedoch töten die Rotorblätter der Windkraftanlagen jedes Jahr Tausende Fledermäuse. Fledermäuse sind in Europa streng geschützt. Das Grün-Grün-Dilemma, das aus diesem Konflikt resultiert, lässt sich multiperspektivisch bewerten.

Wind turbines used to combat climate change pose a green-green dilemma when endangered and protected wildlife species are killed by collisions with spinning blades. Here, we investigated the geographic origin of bats killed by wind turbines along an east-west transect in France to determine the spatial extent of this conflict in Western Europe. We...

Mountains harbour one third of the world’s biodiversity and much of it is under increasing anthropogenic pressure. Yet, global assessments of the occurrence, and threat status of most mountain taxa, especially elusive ones are lacking, thereby hindering conservation and research prioritisation. In this study, we synthesise the distribution and cons...

The loss of habitat heterogeneity due to agricultural intensification has led to a global decline in farmland birds. Among them is the Eurasian Kestrel Falco tinnunculus , which occupies high trophic levels and may be adversely affected by reduced food quantity or quality and consequent health impacts. In this study, we investigate the effects of h...

Considerable advances and breakthroughs in wildlife tracking technology have occurred in recent years, allowing researchers to gain insights into the movements and behaviours of a broad range of animals. Considering the accessibility and increase in use of tracking devices in wildlife studies, it is important to better understand the effects on the...

We present a complete, chromosome-scale reference genome for the long-distance migratory bat Pipistrellus nathusii. The genome encompasses both haplotypic sets of autosomes and the separation of both sex chromosomes by utilizing highly accurate long-reads and preserving long-range phasing information through the use of three-dimensional chromatin c...

Migration is a life-history trait that shapes individual-by-environment interactions, affecting fitness. Currently, many species are changing their migration strategies, stressing the need to identify and better understand the behavioral correlates of migration. As a partial migrant, the noctule bat, Nyctalus noctula, allows for rare intra-specific...

Aktuell werden zunehmend Windenergieanlagen (WEA) in Wäldern aufgestellt. Fledermäuse verlieren dabei durch Rodung direkt und durch Vergrämung indirekt Lebensraum. In Quartiernähe ist mit einem erhöhten Schlagrisiko von kollisionsgefährdeten Fledermäusen an WEA zu rechnen. Daher sollten lediglich artenarme Forstkulturen für die Windenergieproduktio...

The Earth Hologenome Initiative (EHI) is a global collaboration to generate and analyse hologenomic data from wild animals and associated microorganisms using standardised methodologies underpinned by open and inclusive research principles. Initially focused on vertebrates, it aims to re-examine ecological and evolutionary questions by studying hos...

Background External tags, such as transmitters and loggers, are often used to study bat movements. However, physiological and behavioural effects on bats carrying tags have rarely been investigated, and recommendations on the maximum acceptable tag mass are rather based on rules of thumb than on rigorous scientific assessment. Methods We conducted...

Habitat loss and degradation are key drivers of the current biodiversity crisis. Most research focuses on the question of which traits allow species to persist in degraded habitats. We asked whether a species' trophic position or niche width influences the resilience of species in degraded habitats and to what extent habitat degradation affects tro...

Animals that co‐occur in a region (sympatry) may share the same environment (syntopy), and niche differentiation is expected among closely related species competing for resources. The masked booby ( Sula dactylatra ) and smaller congeneric red‐footed booby ( Sula sula ) share breeding grounds. In addition to the inter‐specific size difference, fema...

Motion-triggered light-emitting diodes (LED) could reduce light pollution; however, its effect on nocturnal animals is poorly known. Here, we investigated how bats respond to the motion-triggered lighting of a bicycle path, an infrastructure that is increasingly being built to support human mobility. We measured the acoustic activity of bats in rel...

High altitude flying bats may contribute to the reduction of dispersing pest insects, yet we are lacking detailed studies on their vertical foraging behavior. Here, we examined the three-dimensional foraging behavior of 18-g wrinkle-lipped free-tailed bats using miniaturized Global Positioning System loggers during the peak emergence of planthopper...

Urbanization has significant impacts on wildlife and ecosystems and acts as an environmental filter excluding certain species from local ecological communities. Specifically, it may be challenging for some animals to find enough food in urban environments to achieve a positive energy balance. Because urban environments favor small‐sized bats with l...

Africa experiences frequent emerging disease outbreaks among humans, with bats often proposed as zoonotic pathogen hosts. We comprehensively reviewed virus–bat findings from papers published between 1978 and 2020 to evaluate the evidence that African bats are reservoir and/or bridging hosts for viruses that cause human disease. We present data from...

The immune system plays an important role in defending against pathogens and regulating physiological homeostasis, but the strength of the immune responses depends on the type of pathogen. The immune system of bats shows a high variability in responsiveness towards various pathogens; they can safely harbor certain pathogens that are highly lethal t...

Cities can host significant biological diversity. Yet, urbanisation leads to the loss of habitats, species, and functional groups. Understanding how multiple taxa respond to urbanisation globally is essential to promote and conserve biodiversity in cities. Using a dataset encompassing six terrestrial faunal taxa (amphibians, bats, bees, birds, cara...

Knowledge of species' functional traits is essential for understanding biodiversity patterns, predicting the impacts of global environmental changes, and assessing the efficiency of conservation measures. Bats are major components of mammalian diversity and occupy a variety of ecological niches and geographic distributions. However, an extensive co...

The efficiency with which flying animals convert metabolic power to mechanical power dictates an individual's flight behaviour and energy requirements. Despite the significance of this parameter, we lack empirical data on conversion efficiency for most species as in vivo measurements are notoriously difficult to obtain. Furthermore, conversion effi...

The change in species richness along elevational gradients is a well‐known pattern in nature. Niche theory predicts that increasing species richness in assemblages can either lead to denser packing of niche space (‘niche packing’) or an expansion into its novel regions (‘niche expansion’). Traditionally, these scenarios have been studied using func...

In late summer, migratory bats of the temperate zone face the challenge of accomplishing two energy-demanding tasks almost at the same time: migration and mating. Both require information and involve search efforts, such as localizing prey or finding potential mates. In non-migrating bat species, playback studies showed that listening to vocalizati...

This comprehensive species-specific chapter covers all aspects of the mammalian biology, including paleontology, physiology, genetics, reproduction and development, ecology, habitat, diet, mortality, and behavior. The economic significance and management of mammals and future challenges for research and conservation are addressed as well. The chapt...

Zusammenfassung Aus Sicht des Naturschutzes tangiert Lichtverschmutzung vor allem die Lebensräume von nachtaktiven Tieren, zum Beispiel die der Fledermäuse. Dieses Kapitel bietet eine strukturierte Übersicht darüber, in welchem Umfang sich Lichtverschmutzung auf Fledermäuse negativ auswirken kann und wie sich unter der Maßgabe des hohen nationalen...

Zusammenfassung Wildtiere sind in einer durch den Menschen intensiv genutzten Landschaft vielen anthropogenen Faktoren ausgesetzt, die nicht nur Einfluss auf ihre Bewegungen, sondern auch direkt Einfluss auf ihre Gesundheit und ihr Überleben haben. Manche Arten nutzen die anthropogenen Landschaften zu ihrem Vorteil und breiten sich aus, andere verl...

In late summer, migratory bats of the temperate zone face the challenge of accomplishing two energy-demanding tasks almost at the same time: migration and mating. Both require information and involve search efforts, such as localizing prey or finding potential mates. In non-migrating bat species, playback studies showed that listening to vocalizati...

Global ecosystems are changing dramatically due to land transformation and climate change. Global change is a particular challenge for migratory animals that rely on multiple stepping stones on their journeys. Migratory animals have a range of strategies to accomplish this, but not all of these strategies may be appropriate for the challenges ahead...

Large numbers of bats are killed at wind turbines worldwide. To formulate mitigation measures such as curtailment, recent approaches relate the acoustic activity of bats around reference turbines to casualties to extrapolate fatality rates at turbines where only acoustic surveys are conducted. Here, we modeled how sensitive this approach is when sp...

The acute phase response (APR) is an evolutionarily well-conserved part of the innate immune defense against pathogens. However, recent studies in bats yielded surprisingly diverse results compared to previous APR studies on both vertebrate and invertebrate species. This is especially interesting due to the known role of bats as reservoirs for viru...

Speculations about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have catapulted bats into the spotlight of scientific and societal attention, with unforeseen consequences for bat conservation. In two global surveys with bat experts before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we assessed their (i) threat perceptions, emotions towards bats and social trust in decision make...

The wind energy-bat conflict is well documented for the onshore sector, with high numbers of casualties, specifically for migratory bat species. Offshore wind turbines might be a threat to bats as well, yet offshore bat migration is poorly documented. Accordingly, potential conflicts between bat conservation and offshore wind energy production are...

Animals that depend on ephemeral, patchily distributed prey often use public information to locate resource patches. The use of public information can lead to the aggregation of foragers at prey patches, a mechanism known as local enhancement. However, when ephemeral resources are distributed over large areas, foragers may also need to increase sea...

Worldwide, wind turbines are increasingly being built at forest sites to meet the goals of national climate strategies. Yet, the impact on biodiversity is barely understood. Bats may be heavily affected by wind turbines in forests, because many species depend on forest ecosystems for roosting and hunting and can experience high fatality rates at wi...

Urbanisation is a major contributor to the loss of biodiversity. Its rapid progress is mostly at the expense of natural ecosystems and the species inhabiting them. While some species can adjust quickly and thrive in cities, many others cannot. To support biodiversity conservation and guide management decisions in urban areas, it is important to fin...

Agricultural practice has led to landscape simplification and biodiversity decline, yet recently, energy‐producing infrastructures, such as wind turbines, have been added to these simplified agroecosystems, turning them into multi‐functional energy‐agroecosystems. Here, we studied the trophic interactions of bats killed at wind turbines using a DNA...

Bats are protected by national and international legislation in European countries, yet many species, particularly migratory aerial insectivores, collide with wind turbines which counteracts conservation efforts. Within the European Union it is legally required to curtail the operation of wind turbines at periods of high bat activity, yet this is n...

In late summer, migratory bats of the temperate zone face the challenge of accomplishing two energy-demanding tasks almost at the same time: migration and mating. Both require information and involve search efforts, such as localizing prey or finding potential mates. In non-migrating bat species, playback studies showed that listening to vocalizati...

Conservation of migratory birds requires knowledge of breeding and nonbreeding ranges and the connections between them. European turtle doves ( Streptopelia turtur ) are Palearctic-African long-distance migrants with wintering areas in the Sub-Saharan belt that are classed as vulnerable due to strong population declines. However, detailed non-breed...

s Wind energy production is particularly rewarding along coastlines, yet coastlines are often important as migratory corridors for wildlife. This creates a conflict between energy production from renewable sources and conservation goals, which needs to be considered during environmental planning. To shed light on the spatial interactions of a high...

Bat migration across the baltic and Noth Sea. The report is available online at: https://bfn.bsz-bw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/1132

Large numbers of bats are killed by wind turbines globally, yet the specific demographic consequences of wind turbine mortality are still unclear. In this study, we compared characteristics of Nathusius' pipistrelles (Pipistrellus nathusii) killed at wind turbines (N = 119) to those observed within the live population (N = 524) during the summer mi...

In order to deal with the current dramatic biodiversity decline, the public at large needs to be aware of and participate in biodiversity research activities. One way to do so is to involve citizens in citizen science (CS) projects. These are projects in which researchers collaborate with volunteering citizens in scientific research projects. Yet,...

The increasing use of chemicals in the European Union (EU) has resulted in environmental emissions and wildlife exposures. For approving a chemical within the EU, producers need to conduct an environmental risk assessment, which typically relies on data generated under laboratory conditions without considering the ecological and landscape context....

Global change, including urbanisation, threatens many of the >1400 bat species. Nevertheless, certain areas within highly urbanised cities may be suitable to harbour bat populations. Thus, managing urban habitats could contribute to bat conservation. Here, we wanted to establish evidence-based recommendations on how to improve urban spaces for the...

Species richness exhibits well-known patterns across elevational gradients in various taxa but represents only one aspect of quantifying biodiversity patterns. Functional and phylogenetic diversity have received much less attention, particularly for vertebrate taxa. There is still a limited understanding of how functional, phylogenetic and taxonomi...

Billions of birds migrate from the Palaearctic to sub-Saharan Africa, yet we are unaware about where exactly they stay over winter and how consistent they have been using these wintering areas over historical times. Here, we inferred the historical wintering areas of Eurasian Golden Orioles (Oriolus oriolus) from stable isotope ratios of feathers....

Emerging infectious diseases may become serious threats to wildlife, a prominent example being the white-nose disease (WND). In case of WND, the cold-loving fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans colonizes bats during hibernation, invades the skin and has already lead to the death of millions of bats in North America. P. destructans most likely origin...

Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), the causative agent of white-nose syndrome in North America, has decimated bat populations within a decade. The fungus impacts bats during hibernation when physiological functions, including immune responses, are down-regulated. Studies have shown that Pd is native to Europe, where it is not associated with mass m...

The exact anatomical location for an iron particle-based magnetic sense remains enigmatic in vertebrates. For mammals, findings from a cornea anaesthesia experiment in mole rats suggest that it carries the primary sensors for magnetoreception. Yet, this has never been tested in a free-ranging mammal. Here, we investigated whether intact corneal sen...

Ecologically similar species partition their use of resources and habitats and thus coexist due to ecological segregation in space, time, or diet. In seabirds, this segregation may differ over the annual cycle or vary inter-annually. We evaluated niche segregation in 3 sympatric storm-petrel species ( Hydrobates melania , H. leucorhous , and H. mic...

Integrating information on species-specific sensory perception with spatial activity provides a high-resolution understanding of how animals explore environments, yet frequently used exploration assays commonly ignore sensory acquisition as a measure for exploration. Echolocation is an active sensing system used by hundreds of mammal species, prima...

With increasing livestock numbers, competition and avoidance are increasingly shaping resource availability for wild ungulates. Shifts in the dietary niche of wild ungulates are likely and can be expected to negatively affect their fitness. The Mongolian Gobi constitutes the largest remaining refuge for several threatened ungulates, but unprecedent...

Wind turbines (WTs) frequently kill bats worldwide. During environmental impact assessments, consultant ecologists often use automated ultrasonic detectors (AUDs) to estimate the activity and identity of bats in the zone of highest mortality risk at WTs in order to formulate mitigation schemes, such as increased curtailment speeds to prevent casual...

The increase in artificial light at night (ALAN) is widely considered as a major driver for the worldwide decline of nocturnal pollinators such as moths. However, the relationship between light and trees as ‘islands of shade’ within urban areas has not yet been fully understood. Here, we studied (1) the effects of three landscape variables, i.e. so...

Evidence is accumulating that insects are frequently killed by operating wind turbines, yet it is poorly understood if these fatalities cause population declines and changes in assemblage structures on various spatial scales. Current observations suggest that mostly hill‐topping, swarming, and migrating insects interact with wind turbines. Recently...

Migrating species and populations are affected by conditions existing across large geographical scales. The degree to which populations mix at stop-over sites and wintering grounds is variable and can involve important fitness consequences. Thus, the link between breeding and wintering grounds and seasonal shifts in population structure are importa...

This study is the first step towards more systematic monitoring of urban bat fauna in Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries by collecting bat echolocation call parameters in Ho Chi Minh and Tra Vinh cities. We captured urban bats and then recorded echolocation calls after releasing in a tent. Additional bat’s echolocation calls from the free-...

Photo stimuli can be an effective way to engage people in wildlife conservation by stimulating emotions and cognitions. In a before-after experiment, we studied the effects of two sets of photo stimuli (bat under distress vs. bat with engaged human) on the observer’s wildlife value orientations, emotions, attitudes (bats/conservation) and behaviora...

RATIONALE Identifying migratory corridors of animals is essential for their effective protection, yet the exact location of such corridors is often unknown, particularly for elusive animals such as bats. While migrating along the German coastline, Nathusius’ pipistrelles (Pipistrellus nathusii) are regularly killed at wind turbines. Therefore, we e...

Integrating information on species-specific sensory perception together with spatial activity provides a high-resolution understanding of how animals explore environments, yet frequently used exploration assays commonly ignore sensory acquisition as a measure for exploration. Echolocation is an active sensing system used by hundreds of mammal speci...

Sexual segregation in foraging occurs in some species and populations of boobies (Sulidae), but it is not a general pattern. Sexual segregation in foraging may occur to avoid competition for food, and this competition may intensify during specific stages of breeding. We examined sexual segregation in foraging in relation to breeding stage in masked...

A male Pipistrellus nathusii ringed in Pape Natural Park (S Latvia) in August 2015 was recovered recently dead in Pitillas’ Lagoon Natural Reserve (N Spain) in March 2017. At 2224 km in SSW direction, this is the first documented bat migration between these countries and worldwide the longest migration record of a bat. We also report other observat...