Open Collections

Chan, Avery; Dinkova, Yoana; Lee, Subin; Sotomayor, Sebastian

While bats provide numerous ecosystem services, urban populations of bats in Vancouver are increasingly threatened by habitat destruction, land fragmentation, and a lack of vegetation and prey to support their needs. Despite this, very little attention has been paid towards bridging existing ecological knowledge on bats towards local conservation policy. To better support the rich biodiversity of bats in Vancouver, this project was proposed by the City of Vancouver and CityStudio to identify bat-friendly vegetation and landscape features, and to assess the current bat habitat suitability of parks in the City of Vancouver. To accomplish these objectives, a literature review and expert interviews were first conducted to synthesize previous research and local knowledge. Subsequently, a geospatial multi-criteria evaluation was done to evaluate parks for bat habitat suitability. This was then ground truthed during site visits at select parks and supplemented by a statistical analysis of the restoration potential of parks for bat habitat suitability. As a result, 65 species of plants were identified to support bats in Vancouver, and 247 parks were ranked by bat habitat suitability and restoration potential. The highest scoring parks were generally large parks with established forests and stable freshwater bodies. Similarly, the parks with highest improvement potential were near other parks with water bodies and contained intermediate vegetational diversity. Deliverables for this project include this report, a bat-friendly landscape design guide pamphlet, and an interactive map of Vancouver’s parks by bat habitat suitability. This work can be used to guide policymakers at the City of Vancouver in strategically restoring public spaces for local bat species, building a more resilient ‘batscape’ for our critically important winged neighbours.

Text

University of British Columbia. ENVR 400

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0442343

Science, Faculty of; Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Department of

Undergraduate

DSpace