Bat Monitoring Programme

A citizen science programme to monitor bat populations

Bats are elusive mammals whose study has been hampered by their nocturnal habitats and often inaccessible diurnal roosts and by being volant animals flying too far from the typical observer, making them hard to identify. Bat biologists have been studying bats in Europe for many decades now, yet there are still some species of which we know almost nothing. The Bat Monitoring Programme platform offers a dynamic, user-friendly database designed to gather and manage data collected from bat research, both generated by professional researchers, amateur naturalists, or NGO volunteers. At the same time, the Bat Monitoring Programme is a citizen science project designed for any non-specialized volunteer that aims to increase bat knowledge in Europe and improve their conservation.

The Bat Monitoring Programme consists of four different protocols adapted to cover the differing phenological phases of all bat species from Europe throughout the year: the ChiroHabitats, the ChiroRivers, the ChiroBoxes and the ChiroRoosts. The ChiroHabitats protocol uses ultrasound detectors to monitor the acoustic bat activity in their foraging areas and habitat selection and preferences by different species. ChiroRivers is designed to sample and monitor trawling bats in rivers and riparian habitats during the reproductive season. The ChiroBoxes protocol is specifically based on bat boxes checks with the aim to monitor their occupation by different species during the different seasons of the year. Finally, the ChiroRoosts protocol is focused on underground and overground roosts inspections throughout the year.

By combining the data gathered from the different protocols, we can map current bat distribution knowledge and work with Species Distribution Models and calculate population trends at species level across regions and habitats.

Team members
  • imgAdrià López-Baucells Scientific Coordinator of the Bat Monitoring Program
  • imgDavid López-BoschDoctoral candidate of the Bat Monitoring Program
  • imgMaria MasDoctoral candidate and technician of the Bat Monitoring Program
  • imgCarme Tuneu CorralDoctoral scholarship holder by international bat projects
  • imgAlba CoronadoSupport technician of the Bat Monitoring Program
  • imgLaura TorrentDoctoral scholarship holder by international bat projects
  • imgEstel Blanch OjeaMSc & Bch student
  • imgMarina PercevalDoctoral candidate with a scholarship holder by the Generalitat de Catalunya for the Bat Monitoring Program
  • imgXavier Puig-MontserratBiBio R&D and Coordinator of the Bat Monitoring Scheme
  • imgCarles FlaquerCoordinator and public relations

Monitoring programmes

As biodiversity is becoming increasingly threatened by global change, robust methods for measuring current trends of wild faunal populations are urgently needed. Monitoring programmes aimed at recording biodiversity changes over time have become indispensable tools for biodiversity conservation. The research group BiBio coordinates four monitoring programmes based on citizen science, covering a wide range of taxa, from butterflies to small mammals and bats. Data from these monitoring programmes forms the core of the BiBio research group.

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Catalan Butterfly Monitoring Scheme

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Bat Monitoring Programme

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Common Small Mammals Monitoring Programme

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Dormouse project

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