Economic Importance of Bats in Agriculture

By J. Boyles, P. Cryan, G. McCracken, Thomas H. Kunz. Science, 2011

818 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Animal Science and Zoology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/aeb656dd9f66812a11d0513cde64e3d70a91ec7e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Animal Science and Zoology

1. Kirsten Jung
2. J. Gowdy
3. Gareth J. F. Jones
4. E. Kalko
5. Sarah Parks

In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics

1. Gareth J. F. Jones
2. Kirsten Jung
3. Tigga Kingston
4. E. Kalko
5. P. Racey
6. N. Furey
7. Kirsty J. Park
8. K. Haysom

Citations in the corpus

• Mitigating the impacts of agriculture on biodiversity: bats and their potential role as bioindicators (2015, background): “…only in the last few years that the necessary 92 experiments to quantify this have been conducted, with marked effects of bats on insect herbivores 93 (Williams-Guillén et al. 2008; Boyles et al. 2011), culminating in substantially increased crop yields 94 due to bat predation (Maas et al. 2013).”
• Conservation Ecology of Cave Bats (2016, background): “The ecological services provided by cave bats have been documented in recent years (Boyles et al. 2011; Kunz et al. 2011).”
• A world review of fungi, yeasts, and slime molds in caves (2013, background): “…estimated to have killed 5.7-6.7 million North American bats and one predicted to result in North American agricultural losses of $3.7 billion/year (Boyles et al., 2011;; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service news release, January 17, 2012) This paper reviews information on fungi, yeasts, and slime molds…”
• Bats in the Anthropogenic Matrix: Challenges and Opportunities for the Conservation of Chiroptera and Their Ecosystem Services in Agricultural Landscapes (2016, background): “Extending these estimates to agricultural areas throughout the USA suggests that bat predation could have a value of nearly US $23 billion annually (Boyles et al. 2011).”
• The impact and implications of climate change for bats (2013, background): “insect pest abundance will increase and pollination of food plants will be reduced (Boyles et al. 2011).”
• Bats as potential suppressors of multiple agricultural pests: A case study from Madagascar (2019, background): “Multiple lines of evidence support that aerial hawking insectivorous bats provide valuable agricultural pest control services in both temperate and tropical regions (Boyles et al., 2011; Karp and Daily, 2014; Wanger et al., 2014; Brown et al., 2015; Russo et al., 2018).”
• Dark Matters: The Effects of Artificial Lighting on Bats (2016, background): “insectivorous bats to the US agricultural industry by reducing insect populations was estimated to be $23 billion/year (Boyles et al. 2011).”
• What have economists learned about valuing nature? A review essay (2013, methodology): “In another production function type approach, Boyles et al. (2011) used estimates of the value of pest suppression services provided by bats in a cotton-dominated agricultural environment in south-central Texas to calculate the economic importance of bats in agriculture for the entire United States…”
• Cute, Creepy, or Crispy—How Values, Attitudes, and Norms Shape Human Behavior Toward Bats (2016, background): “Boyles et al. (2011) estimated that bats may collectively save the US agricultural industry at least $3.7 billion a year by suppressing crop pests, and Wanger et al. (2014) put the value of a single insecteating species (Chaerephon plicata) to rice production in Thailand at over $1 million annually.”