Road density and forest fragmentation shape bat communities in temperate mosaic landscapes

Road construction is expanding worldwide, exacerbating both direct mortality by road-kills and habitat fragmentation, especially for mobile vertebrates such as bats. Understanding how road density affects bat communities in mosaic landscapes of various compositions configurations therefore critical. We acoustically sampled 172 southern France to: (i) disentangle the relative interacting effects forest fragmentation farmland on activity communities; (ii) investigate different aspects diversity (taxonomic, functional phylogenetic) species according to their life-history traits; (iii) assess whether bats change with level fragmentation. Forest amount patchiness were more important than all components diversity, except evenness. Bat peaked intermediate levels while had negative phylogenetic diversity. The effect R. ferrumequinum, hipposideros, N. leisleri P. pipistrellus was only either a low or number patches. By better understanding interactions between density, our study will contribute adequate landscape planning that improve resilience expansion Moreover, complex landscape-level matrix quality advocate use holistic view future studies.