Novel real-time PCR species identification assays for British and Irish bats and their application to a non-invasive survey of bat roosts in Ireland
2019
Harrington, Andrew P. | O’Meara, Denise B. | Aughney, Tina | McAney, Kate | Schofield, Henry | Collins, Anna | Deenen, Harm | O’Reilly, Catherine
Detection and monitoring of extant bat populations are crucial for conservation success. Non-invasive genetic analysis of bat droppings collected at roosts could be very useful in this respect as a rapid, cost‐efficient monitoring tool. We developed species‐specific real-time PCR assays for 18 British and Irish bat species to enable non‐invasive, large‐scale distribution monitoring, which were then applied to a field survey in Ireland. One hundred and sixty-four DNA samples were collected from 95 bat roosts, of which 73% of samples were identified to species, and the resident bat species were identified at 89% of roosts. However, identification success varied between roost types, ranging from 22% for underground sites to 92% for bat boxes. This panel of DNA tests will be especially useful in cases where roosts contain multiple species, where the number of bats present is small, or bats are otherwise difficult to directly observe. The methodology could be applied to the surveillance of proposed development sites, post development mitigation measures, distribution surveys, bat box schemes and the evaluation of agri-environmental bat box schemes.
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