From virtue to sin: is the installation of bat boxes an effective conservation measure or a potential pitfall for vulnerable bat species?

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Fulgencio Lisón, Camilo Matus-Olivares, Jaime Carrasco, Andrés Weintraub This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4201171/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Bat boxes are a key element in bat conservation policies being very popular. However, it is a biased action that is only favourable for a few bat species. In this manuscript, we hypothesize that the installation of these elements and an extensive proliferation of them could threaten other bat species more vulnerable due to the niche competition. For this, we calculated the overlapping degree between the bat species that use bat boxes and those that do not, specifically: 1) To determine the favourability area of these bat species through habitat suitability models in Iberian Peninsula; 2) To compare the overlapping degree between both bat groups; 3) To elaborate optimal maps for the installation of bat boxes through optimization algorithm; and 4) To discuss the implications for the conservation of this action. Our results showed that the overlapping between bat boxes users and the other species is high (mean 51.8%) and there are areas where a bat boxes not user species could compete with at least 9 bat boxes user species. Therefore, the installation of bat boxes could be counterproductive, and we should focus on other conservation actions. We used an optimization algorithm to find out those areas where it is not recommendable to install them and developed a flowchart to evaluate its installation in an area. In conclusion, our study highlights that conservation actions on some occasions could be negative or be a pitfall for themselves, and it is necessary to discuss the effectiveness of certain measures for bat conservation. Chiroptera conservation niche competition management species distribution modelling Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 1. Introduction One of the main actions to promote bat conservation is the making and placing of bat boxes, where these elements try to supply the roost scarcity in humanized areas (Mering and Chambers 2014 ; Rueegger 2016 ; Arias et al. 2020 ; Cowan et al. 2021 ; Lausen et al. 2022 ). Also, these bat boxes are used to help with pest suppression in agricultural and urban areas (Flaquer et al. 2006 ; Koschnicke et al. 2010 ; Weier et al. 2019 ; Puig-Montserrat et al. 2020 ). On the other hand, this action is too easy to practice by conservationist and ecologist groups, because its production is simple, didactic, cheap, and can be made by the volunteers themselves. This way, there is a direct link between those volunteers and the objects they want to preserve, which has proven to generate positive attitudes towards the bats (Boso et al. 2021 ). In fact, these actions have a good reception in the newspapers and social networks, increasing the visibility of conservationist groups. The use of bat boxes has increased enormously in European countries, especially in Spain (Agnelli et al. 2010 ; Rueegger 2016 ; Alcalde et al. 2020 ). Its boom was so high that a business has emerged around them. However, bat boxes are a biased conservation measure, where these boxes are often used by generalist and non-threatened species (Mering and Chambers 2014 ; Rueegger 2016 ; Griffiths et al. 2017 ; Rueegger et al. 2019 ; Lausen et al. 2022 ). In the Iberian Peninsula, they are mostly occupied by pipistrelles and noctules (Alcalde et al., 2020 ; Supplementary Material 1), which have low vulnerability levels (Lisón et al., 2015b ; Table 1 ). Also, these roosts are placed extensively (50–100 boxes) without a previous evaluation of the present bat community, the interaction possibilities with other threatened bat species, food availability or the presence of dangerous elements for bats such as wind turbines, roads, etc (Frick et al. 2020 ). Table 1 List of bat species of both groups analysed and their threatened status in the Iberian Peninsula. Bat boxes not user species (BNU) Bat boxes user species (BBU) Species UICN List Species UICN List Myotis blythii Vu A2ac Pipistrellus pipistrellus LC Myotis capaccinii EN B2ab(ii) Pipistrellus pygmaeus LC Myotis daubentonii - Pipistrellus kuhlii - Myotis myotis Vu A2ac Nyctalus leisleri NT Miniopterus schreibersii Vu A2ac Nyctalus lasiopterus Vu B1ab(iii)D1 Plecotus austriacus NT Eptesicus serotinus - Rhinolophus euryale Vu A2ac Eptesicus isabellinus - Rhinolophus ferrumequinum NT Plecotus auritus NT Rhinolophus hipposideros NT Barbastella barbastellus NT Rhinolophus mehelyi EN A3c Several studies (Salinas-Ramos et al. 2020 ) showed that bat morphology (wing shape, skull morphology and echolocation calls characteristics) determines the space occupied and prey type. This way, we can find bat species that share trophic niches, with similar diets and could trigger inter-specific competence phenomenon between them (Lisón and Calvo 2013 ; Lisón et al. 2015a ; Salinas‐Ramos et al. 2020; Froidevaux et al. 2023 ). Although bats show the capacity to separate their niche spatially or temporally to avoid competition (Lisón and Calvo 2013 ; Roeleke et al. 2018 ), studies on interspecific interactions in bat communities are scarce. Recently, it was observed that bat species are capable to recognise the echolocation calls of other bat species and avoid sharing the same areas (Schuchmann et al. 2012 ; Roeleke et al. 2018 ; Lewanzik et al. 2019 ). This way, there is an indirect exclusion competition. Hence, an increase in the population of some species due to the availability of artificial roosts could alter the natural equilibrium of bat communities if the competitive interactions grow. For this reason, it is necessary to explore and highlight this conservation issue to avoid future problems and therefore, bat boxes actions should be coordinated. We hypothesize that the installation of these elements and a massive proliferation of them could threaten other bat species more vulnerable bat species due to the niche competition. To assess this, we calculated the overlapping degree between the bat species that use bat boxes and those that do not, specifically: 1) To determine the niche of these bat species through habitat suitability models; 2) To compare the overlapping degree between both bat groups; 3) To elaborate optimal maps for the installation of bat boxes through optimization algorithm; and 4) To discuss the implications for the conservation of this action. 2. Material and methods 2.1. Species distribution data We used presence/absence distribution data of bat species present in the Iberian Peninsula nested in 10x10 km 2 UTM cells. The dataset of bat distribution was elaborated from the distribution maps of “Atlas y Libro Rojo de los Mamíferos Terrestres de España” (Gisbert and Palomo 2007 ) and “Atlas dos morcegos de Portugal” (Rainho et al. 2013 ). This dataset was updated with new records with the same resolution from personal surveys and references (Lisón et al. 2015b ; Lisón and Sánchez-Fernández 2017 ). We did not use those bat species with less than 40 records as well as we did not include the twin species Myotis nattereri/escalerai because there is uncertainty in its distribution (Gisbert and Palomo 2007 ). For the species Eptesicus serotinus and E. isabellinus , we considered the distribution of the latter as limited to the south and south east of Iberia (Andalusia and Murcia; Gisbert and Palomo, 2007 ), however, we acknowledge that there is overlapping between them (Lisón 2015 ). Bat species were grouped into two categories: 1) Bat boxes users’ species (BBU), and 2) Bat boxes not users (BNU; Table 1 ) according to the data recorded from Spain and other European countries (Alcalde et al., 2020 ; Supplementary Material 1). Some bat species can occur in bat boxes too in other countries, but we used here those that frequently occur in bat boxes in Spain. We did not include some Iberian species with little data about their diet or ecology such as Tadarida teniotis , Hypsugo savii and others. The bat species which do not use bat boxes are mainly subterranean (caves, mines and basements), while the other group has fissure habits or roosts in holes in the trees (Gisbert and Palomo 2007 ; Lisón et al. 2015b ). 2.2. Species distribution model and environmental variables We used MaxEnt software to estimate the potential distribution of each bat species in the Iberian Peninsula using as response variable the species' presence records and as covariates a set of 17 environmental variables grouped into five categories: climate, soil characteristics, topography, human activity, and land cover (Supplementary Material 2). We chose Maxent because it is a software with a wide implementation in the species distribution modelling (Ahmed et al. 2015 ) and because high predictive performances are often reported (e.g. (Elith and Graham 2009 ; Heikkinen et al. 2012 ). Selected covariates did not present a correlation between them ( Pearson < |0.7| ), avoiding multicollinearity in our species distribution models (Dormann et al. 2013 ). We clarify that for species M. capaccinii and E. isabellinus their models were fitted with 9 and 14 environmental variables, respectively. This was done following the general rule of 1:10, which is the ratio between the maximum number of covariate predictors that a model should have according to the number of presence records in order to avoid overfitting (Harrell et al. 1984 ). Therefore, M. capaccinii and E. isabellinus had less than 170 than the rest of the species (see Supplementary Material 3 and 4). To select the final covariates, we first fitted models using all 17 covariates using MaxEnt's default modelling options. Then the 9 and 14 covariates that contributed the most to the predictions of the models according to the MaxEnt algorithm were chosen for M. capaccinii and E. isabellinus , respectively. 2.3. Model optimization and evaluation MaxEnt has different hyperparameters (i. e. model options that control the calibration process of the model), which could affect the performance of the predictions according to its values (Morales et al. 2017 ). We tested all possible combinations between "features" (linear, quadratic, product, threshold, and hinge) and "regularization multiplier" (0.5; 0.75; 1.0; 1.25, ... 7) in a frame of 10-fold cross-validation using randomly a 70% of the data to calibrate (i. e. training) and the 30% remaining to validate (i. e. testing). Then, we used the AUC of each model type as a metric of the performance of the different combinations of hyperparameters. Therefore, we selected the model with the best AUC metric. Finally, after model optimization, the presence probabilities of each species were estimated using 100% of data (Supplementary Material 6 and 8). We used R software (R Core Team 2019 ) to implement all our analyses. The hyperparameters optimization was made with the " train " function of the caret R package (Kuhn 2008 ; Corrêa, P. 2021 ). To be able to use MaxEnt through the train function, the “maxentCaret” R object was placed in the “method'” option of said function, which is obtained through the caretSDM package (Corrêa, P. 2021 ). 2.4. Favourability data and calculating the interaction between both bat groups After estimating the potential distribution of each bat species in our study area, the presence probability of each species was converted into favourability values (Supplementary Material 7 and 9) with the following function: $${F}_{i}=\frac{\frac{{P}_{i}}{(1-{P}_{i})}}{\frac{{n}_{1}}{{n}_{0}}+\frac{P}{(1-{P}_{i})}},$$ where \({P}_{i}\) is the estimated probability of presence in a UTM cell \(i\) , \({n}_{1}\) is the total number of presences for a species, and \({n}_{0}\) its total number of absences. This function removes the effect of species prevalence in the predicted probabilities (i. e. presence/absence relation of species in a model), this way the predictions are more commensurable and comparable between species (Real et al. 2016 ). Then, we used the favourability maps to understand the probability of interaction between two species of each group. We calculate this probability using the following equation: $${S}_{i}\left(A,B\right)=2\frac{{F}_{i}^{A} {F}_{i}^{B}}{{F}_{i}^{A}+{F}_{i}^{B}} .$$ where \({F}_{i}^{A}\) is the favourability of species \(A\) in the UTM cell \(i\) , while \({F}_{i}^{B}\) represents the favourability of species \(B\) in the cell \(i\) . The \({S}_{i}\left(A,B\right)\) index ranged between 0 and 1, where 0 value means a low interaction measure and 1 value means a total interaction. Then, we categorized the cells into four categories according to their interaction index: 1) “Low” (≤ 0.3); 2) “Medium” (> 0.3 and ≤ 0.6); 3) “High” (> 0.6 and ≤ 0.8); and “Very high” (> 0.8). We used these categories to make risk maps of interaction between species (Supplementary Material 10 to 19). 2.5. Optimal areas for bat boxes installation To identify and map the optimal areas for bat boxes installation, we first determine for each bat species a suitable habitat map where the favourability value was ≥ 0.7 in the UTM cell. Although, some studies recommend as suitable habitats those areas with a favourability value ≥ 0.5 (Acevedo and Real 2012 ), we preferred 0.7 to decrease the uncertainty of our estimations. Therefore, we considered optimal areas for bat boxes installation those areas where the favourability was low for species BNU and high for BBU species. We calculated optimization maps for the bat boxes installation where we guarantee a minimum of 5, 10, 15 and 20% (Solution 1 to 4) of the favourable habitat for all BNU species and where there is a low competition with the other bat group (BBU). To identify these maps, we used the “ problem” and “ solve” functions of the prioritizr package (Hanson, et al. 2022 ) for R software. The solutions for these four problems were made with the open source solver called SYMPHONY, which is available in the Rsymphony package (Harter et al. 2021 ) for R. To apply these solutions, in the option " cost_column ” (objective to minimize) of the problem function, we put the competition values, which were calculated as the sum of the environmental favourability of the bat species that use boxes, following the recommendations of Estrada et al. ( 2008 ) and Real et al. ( 2016 ), which is a diversity index proxy. 3. Results The results of habitat suitability models for our species show a high performance, with a mean AUC of 0.8 with a range from 0.70 to 0.92 (Supplementary Material 3). The contribution of each environmental variable for each bat species was summarised in Supplementary Material 4. Our results show that there is a great overlapping between the favourability areas for both bat groups (Fig. 1 ; Supplementary Material 5), where we found that BNU species had an overlap mean of 51.8% with the other bat group. The interaction maps between both bat groups evidence that there are extensive areas where could have a high risk for the more threatened bat species (Fig. 2 ; Supplementary Material 5). The favourable areas for BNU species overlap with nine BBU species and therefore, increasing the possibility of competitive exclusion (Fig. 2 ). 3.1. Optimal areas for bat boxes installation Our results show the optimal areas for the installation of bat boxes where we can conserve a minimum of the favourable areas for BNU species while reducing the competition with the other group of bat species (Fig. 3 ). These maps show that the non-favourable areas to install bat boxes are placed in the east and south of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly. The solution 4 provides a high quantity of favourable areas preserved (minimum of 20%) for BNU species and it is the best optimal solution. The north and west of the Iberian Peninsula were identified as areas suitable for the installation of bat boxes (Fig. 3 ). 4. Discussion Our results showed that the overlap between the favourability areas of the two bat groups is high (> 50%), this is evidence that direct and/or indirect competitive interactions could appear between them. Some studies have evidenced that the bats experience competition between species and most of them try to avoid it, spatially or temporally (Lisón and Calvo 2013 , 2014 ; Corcoran and Conner 2014 ; Corcoran 2022 ). In the Iberian Peninsula, the pipistrelles/serotine have a high overlap in the favourability areas of two threatened species, M. capaccinii and M. schreibersii . The diet analysis evidences that their prey selection is similar (Goiti et al. 2003 ; Almenar et al. 2008 ; Bartonička et al. 2008 ; Lisón et al. 2015a ; Froidevaux et al. 2023 ). It was observed competitive interactions between M. daubentonii and P. pipistrellus in several European countries (Todd and Williamson 2019 ). Also, there is a high overlapping between the diets of rhinolophids and the pipistrelles/serotine (Lino et al. 2014 ; Aldasoro et al. 2019 ), where some authors found a negative interaction between R. hipposideros and P. pipistrellus (Arlettaz et al. 2000 ), being the first in declination. Aside of the direct competition in bat species, there also could be an indirect competition, since some studies showed that bat species avoided those areas where there is an excessive presence of other bats (Lintott et al. 2015 ; Roeleke et al. 2018 ; Beilke et al. 2021 ; Pedersen et al. 2022 ). This phenomenon, called eavesdropping (Fenton 2003 ), is observed between pipistrelles and other species (Todd and Williamson 2019 ; Lewanzik et al. 2019 ; Salinas-Ramos et al. 2020 ). Our analysis identified areas where it is not recommendable to install bat boxes since they could potentially interact negatively with other threatened bat species and where the bat conservation efforts should be driven towards other species, especially cave-dwelling bats. These areas are mainly in the east and south of the Iberian Peninsula, probably because is where the largest population of M. capaccinii and M. schreibersii appears to be (Lisón et al. 2013 , 2015b ). Both are strict cave-dwelling species and are very threatened. Also, in the Mediterranean region, we can find two threatened rhinolophids species ( R. mehelyi and R. euryale ; Lisón et al., 2015b ). These risk areas should be taken into consideration to elaborate a national or regional conservation strategy and contribute with information for correct management inside and outside of the Natura 2000 network (Lisón et al. 2015b , 2017 ). Bat conservation implicates mainly undertaking coordinated conservation policies, with actions addressed to protect all the groups and prioritising those more vulnerable species. This occasionally forces to regulate these actions. All bat species at the European level are protected through the Natura 2000 network (Lisón et al. 2013 , 2015b ), however, while the Annex II bat species are underground and we have reasonable estimations of their populations, there is more uncertainty with regards to the population of the Annex IV bat species. This situation could produce important biases in management plans for both groups inside and outside of protected areas (Lisón et al. 2015b , 2017 ; Lisón and Sánchez-Fernández 2017 ). Bat boxes in Europe, independently of the model, are favourable for one or two species, mainly pipistrelles (Flaquer et al. 2006 ; Dodds and Bilston 2013 ; Griffiths et al. 2017 ; Collins et al. 2020 ; Alcalde et al. 2020 ; Sánchez-Poveda 2022 ), being a global pattern where the bat boxes only are occupied by few species (Koschnicke et al. 2010 ; Griffiths et al. 2017 , 2019 ; Rueegger et al. 2019 ; Godinho et al. 2020 ). This causes that those species which benefit from the bat boxes are very scarce and could produce biases towards generalist and not threatened species (Rueegger 2016 ; Griffiths et al. 2017 ; Alcalde et al. 2020 ). However, even when studies about the role of bat boxes causing changes to the bat communities are scarce, and these is only one study made in urban areas (Griffiths et al. 2020 ) reporting that the bat community did not change, other studies showed that in those areas where the bat boxes were installed, the bat community started to be absolutely dominated by the bat boxes user species, and therefore the role of bat boxes as a conservation tool is debatable (Griffiths et al. 2017 , 2019 ). Incipient studies about the relationship of bat species in the same space showed that the presence of determined species could indirectly affect the activity of the other (Corcoran and Conner 2014 ; Lewanzik et al. 2019 ; Salinas-Ramos et al. 2020 ) and it could happen temporal niche segregation between them (Lisón and Calvo 2013 , 2014 ). Therefore, we believe that studies that go deeper into this issue are necessary deep studies to understand the complex interspecific interactions on bats. On the other hand, the bat-boxes users are mainly species with migratory patterns (Smeraldo et al. 2021 ), while the other group has sedentary patterns (Smeraldo et al. 2018 ), which could explain the seasonal variability in the occupation of bat boxes (Alcalde et al. 2020 ). This is an interesting point because bat species, which do not use the bat boxes are more dependent on the local resources to support the hibernation period. Also, the bat boxes users have increased their current distribution due to climate change (Ancillotto et al. 2016 ; Smeraldo et al. 2021 ), and it is possible that, in the future, we will find new competitive interactions where before there were none before. These results show that a policy of bat boxes installation without control or planning could alter the bat communities present in some areas. Bat boxes had been criticized as conservation measures due to their specific bias and their influence on the conservation of bat populations (Rueegger 2016 ; Griffiths et al. 2017 ). Although bat boxes are considered a tool to improve the absence of roosts for some species (Flaquer et al. 2006 ; López-Baucells et al. 2017 ; Alcalde et al. 2020 ), they should be a complement within a big conservation strategy for all bat species (e.g. making also roosts for bats with underground habits (Stumpf et al. 2017 )), especially focusing on the more vulnerable species. Indeed, the installation of bat boxes is not enough to compensate anthropic alterations such as land-use changes, roads, pesticides, light or acoustic contamination, prey absence, etc (Russo and Ancillotto 2015 ; Lisón and Sánchez-Fernández 2017 ; Russo et al. 2019 ; Frick et al. 2020 ; Ramalho and Aguiar 2020 ; Domer et al. 2021 ; Bhardwaj et al. 2021 ). The fact that humans can artificially increase the populations of some bat species and the effect it has on other species has not yet been evaluated. For example, it had been observed in canids that feral dogs can compete directly with other species such as wolves, foxes, etc, and could alter the behaviour of the natural populations (Wilson et al. 2020 ). As a matter of fact, in bats, there happens a phenomena of indirect exclusion as some studies found, where bats avoided areas where other bat species appeared because the bats actively listened to the present bat community (Schuchmann et al. 2012 ; Roeleke et al. 2018 ; Lewanzik et al. 2019 ). 4.1. Other considerations about an uncontrolled bat boxes policy for bat conservation In addition to the adverse effects that could produce an extensive installation of bat boxes, we must consider the high risk that the bat boxes represent to the bat species themselves due to the materials and colours used, the orientation, etc, especially in the Mediterranean area (Lourenço and Palmeirim 2004 ; Flaquer et al. 2014 ; Doty et al. 2016 ; Martin Bideguren et al. 2019 ; Alcalde et al. 2020 ; Fontaine et al. 2021 ). Precisely, our optimization maps highlight that those Mediterranean areas are not suitable to install bat boxes. It is expected that in the future, with climate change and an increase in temperatures, many of the bat boxes installed will actually become bat traps (Flaquer et al. 2014 ; Mering and Chambers 2014 ; López-Baucells et al. 2017 ; Martin Bideguren et al. 2019 ; Crawford and O’Keefe 2021 ; Fontaine et al. 2021 ; Crawford et al. 2022 ). In most cases, the bat boxes are installed in harmful areas for bats such as urban areas (Russo and Ancillotto 2015 ), light or acoustic contaminated areas (Russo et al. 2017 , 2019 ; Voigt et al. 2018 ; Jiang et al. 2019 ; Haddock et al. 2019 ; Seewagen and Adams 2021 ), roads where bats have accidents (Ramalho and Aguiar 2020 ). Also, it was observed negative interaction with invasive bird species (Hernández-Brito et al. 2018 ). This could explain the low occupancy levels of bat boxes in the Iberian Peninsula where it is around 40% (Poulton 2006 ; Alcalde et al. 2020 ; Sánchez-Poveda 2022 ). Indeed, there is an increased risk since wind energy will develop greatly (Serrano et al. 2020 ), where the species which use bat boxes will be threatened by these infrastructures (Roemer et al. 2017 ; Bhardwaj et al. 2021 ). We do not have information if the bat boxes (occupied by solitary individuals or small groups of bat species) could modify the genetic dynamics of populations, which normally present an scarce genetic flow (Metheny et al. 2008 ; Bryja et al. 2009 ; Moussy et al. 2013 ; August et al. 2014 ; Sagot et al. 2016 ). Bat boxes should increase the exchange of individuals, altering host-parasite patterns in populations and producing an increase in the diseases caused by ecto- and endoparasites (Witsenburg et al. 2015 ; Millán et al. 2019 ; Léger 2020 ; Müller et al. 2020 ; Núñez-Montero et al. 2021 ), including hyper-parasitism unknown relationships (Szentiványi et al. 2019 ). This is not only a health issue in the bat populations, but it also can emerge into new zoonosis. (e.g. rabies, mycoplasmas, Brucella, Bartonella, etc; (Mühldorfer et al. 2011 ; Millán et al. 2019 ; Müller et al. 2020 ; Frutos et al. 2021 ). The bat boxes installation that happened in the last years has been, on some occasions, due to marketing campaigns or “greenwashing” of companies and governments without a conservation strategy that supports them. The main deficiencies that present these actions are: 1) There is not a monitoring plan in the long term to control their occupancy; 2) There is not a replacement plan to substitute those bat boxes lost by vandalism or normal wear; 3) There is not an analysis about the possible interactions with other more threatened bat species; 4) Their installation does not get accompanied by other conservation actions such as landscape improvement, pesticide suppression, growth in the prey populations, reducing the light or acoustic contamination, etc., and 5) The bat boxes installations are punctual actions in the time and space without coordination with other conservation policies that allow an effective assignation of resources. The data observed in the projects of bat boxes installations (Rueegger 2016 ; Rueegger et al. 2019 ; Alcalde et al. 2020 ) show that after two or three years (the length of the project), the bat boxes are not monitored ever again, are abandoned and not replaced, or simply there is no data about their occupancy. Only some research groups make continuous monitoring of them and evaluate other questions (López-Baucells et al. 2017 ; Griffiths et al. 2019 , 2020 ; Martin Bideguren et al. 2019 ; Pschonny et al. 2022 ). Although bat boxes would have a pedagogical effect and would benefit an increase of positive attitudes towards bats (Pérez et al. 2021 ; Boso et al. 2021 ; Meli et al. 2024 ), these ephemeral actions and short term plans could have a negative effect on the people because they could generate a sensation of uselessness if the measures do not have positive results. 5. Conclusions The bat boxes have demonstrated that they can be a suitable complement to conserve some bat species, a tool for pest suppression and a pedagogical tool for conservation. However, due to its biased use for generalist and not threatened species and its inefficiency to conserve all bat groups, they must be used carefully. Indeed, there are many questions that must be resolved before the extensive implantation of bat boxes, such as the possible interactions between species, competition, disease transmission or emergent zoonosis, light and acoustic pollution, effect or damage of lineal infrastructures (roads, wing farms, etc). This way, it is necessary to analyse beforehand if the installation of bat boxes is essential and if its use should be limited. We provide easy guidelines (Fig. 4 ) to determine if the action of bat boxes installation for bats is suitable. This flowchart is framed inside of the precautionary principle . Inside a conservation strategy for all bat species, our study shows that the bat boxes in the Iberian Peninsula should be implemented carefully, and the resources should be invested in other actions beneficial for the group such as tree planting, pesticide reduction, increasing the availability of prey, and landscape conservation. We are not against the installation of bat boxes but our results highlight that the conservation actions on some occasions could be negative or pitfall conservation actions, and it is necessary to discuss the effectiveness of certain measures for bat conservation. Declarations Conflicts of interest The authors declare no conflict of interest. Ethics Statement No applicable Author Contribution Conceptualization, F.L.; methodology, F.L. and C.M-O.; validation, F.L. and C.M-O; formal analysis, F.L and C.M-O.; investigation, F.L., C.M-O., and J.C.; resources, funding and project administration, F.L., J.C. and A.W.; writing—original draft preparation, F.L.; writing—review and editing, F.L., C.M-O., J.C., and A.W. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Acknowledgement We thank Ángeles Haz for her help with the English translation. References Acevedo P, Real R (2012) Favourability: concept, distinctive characteristics and potential usefulness. Naturwissenschaften 99:515–522. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-012-0926-0 Agnelli P, Maltagliati G, Ducci L, Cannicci S (2010) Artificial roosts for bats: education and research. The “Be a bat’s friend” project of the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence. 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Mol Ecol 24:926–940. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.13071 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files 07.SupplementaryMaterialBandCfinal.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4201171","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":286474065,"identity":"7fe5b64a-ec44-48a2-9b38-e77cb90acb43","order_by":0,"name":"Fulgencio Lisón","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAApklEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBAC9nbGBiBlw8BwAMQtIEILz2GwljSoFgOitICpw6RoYWZu/vBxx/nEvuPNDxh+EKeFsU1y5pnbiTPPHDNg7CFGiz1QCzNv2+3EDTdyGJiJdBhj82fetnOJG+6/IV5LgzRv2wGgLTzEawH6pS3ZeOaZNIODRPmFh7398YePbXayfccPP3zwo4IILSjgAKkaRsEoGAWjYBTgAAC5CDVMEFLQEQAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Universidad de Concepción","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Fulgencio","middleName":"","lastName":"Lisón","suffix":""},{"id":286474066,"identity":"7edbd2c3-474c-4bbb-b9b0-f66c202c5ab2","order_by":1,"name":"Camilo Matus-Olivares","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Universidad de Concepción","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Camilo","middleName":"","lastName":"Matus-Olivares","suffix":""},{"id":286474069,"identity":"ed60e78d-a0a6-4404-9158-d7c79a783466","order_by":2,"name":"Jaime Carrasco","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Jaime","middleName":"","lastName":"Carrasco","suffix":""},{"id":286474070,"identity":"65d64204-39c4-4232-aadf-a926079f6ab3","order_by":3,"name":"Andrés Weintraub","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Universidad de Chile","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Andrés","middleName":"","lastName":"Weintraub","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2024-04-01 14:12:02","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4201171/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4201171/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":54128669,"identity":"62f2a87f-e232-4a98-a2ed-b051688dbdfd","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-04-05 03:31:14","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1397407,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eInteraction probability between bat species of both groups. This interaction probability is calculated using the favourability of each cell for each species.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4201171/v1/90f5606870aeb1a607e596b5.png"},{"id":54128672,"identity":"e785eec9-a0b6-4069-9718-bcff6f20aeb3","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-04-05 03:31:14","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1909009,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eFavourable distribution maps of BNU (bat boxes not users) species and the number of BBU (bat boxes users) species that coincide in the same cell.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4201171/v1/02b66e5c0ed9b4c1d3ab6456.png"},{"id":54128670,"identity":"ff1057c1-ba12-4f4e-9771-f17db70e782b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-04-05 03:31:14","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1166170,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eOptimization maps to install bat-boxes in the Iberian Peninsula. The blue areas are sites where it is not recommended their installation and the grey areas are where it is suitable their placement. The four solutions guarantee the conservation of a minimum of 5, 10, 15, and 20% (Solutions 1 to 4) of favourable habitat for BNU (bat boxes not users) species.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage5.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4201171/v1/44acef19bcac90088dbf5e7d.png"},{"id":54128671,"identity":"a36d6229-87ce-46fc-a6c5-81bec3e8dcf6","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-04-05 03:31:14","extension":"png","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1803190,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eFlowchart diagram proposed to evaluate the installation of bat-boxes in an area.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage7.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4201171/v1/a80ec91ecdb9ae160fe0b431.png"},{"id":58840793,"identity":"e7f1cca8-51f0-4a9f-a392-ff9abe2cd08b","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-06-21 22:46:41","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":9224891,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4201171/v1/50fdba8d-e383-4def-ae68-7ff6b56c35fb.pdf"},{"id":54128673,"identity":"15b67701-1a19-4548-99e6-d2d4f208640a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2024-04-05 03:31:14","extension":"docx","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":7722452,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"07.SupplementaryMaterialBandCfinal.docx","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-4201171/v1/6190851ed4691f09cc0a1ee7.docx"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"From virtue to sin: is the installation of bat boxes an effective conservation measure or a potential pitfall for vulnerable bat species?","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eOne of the main actions to promote bat conservation is the making and placing of bat boxes, where these elements try to supply the roost scarcity in humanized areas (Mering and Chambers \u003cspan citationid=\"CR68\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Rueegger \u003cspan citationid=\"CR87\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Arias et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Cowan et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Lausen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Also, these bat boxes are used to help with pest suppression in agricultural and urban areas (Flaquer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Koschnicke et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Weier et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR104\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Puig-Montserrat et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR80\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). On the other hand, this action is too easy to practice by conservationist and ecologist groups, because its production is simple, didactic, cheap, and can be made by the volunteers themselves. This way, there is a direct link between those volunteers and the objects they want to preserve, which has proven to generate positive attitudes towards the bats (Boso et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). In fact, these actions have a good reception in the newspapers and social networks, increasing the visibility of conservationist groups. The use of bat boxes has increased enormously in European countries, especially in Spain (Agnelli et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Rueegger \u003cspan citationid=\"CR87\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Its boom was so high that a business has emerged around them.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHowever, bat boxes are a biased conservation measure, where these boxes are often used by generalist and non-threatened species (Mering and Chambers \u003cspan citationid=\"CR68\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Rueegger \u003cspan citationid=\"CR87\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Rueegger et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR88\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Lausen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). In the Iberian Peninsula, they are mostly occupied by pipistrelles and noctules (Alcalde et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Supplementary Material 1), which have low vulnerability levels (Lis\u0026oacute;n et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e; Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). Also, these roosts are placed extensively (50\u0026ndash;100 boxes) without a previous evaluation of the present bat community, the interaction possibilities with other threatened bat species, food availability or the presence of dangerous elements for bats such as wind turbines, roads, etc (Frick et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eList of bat species of both groups analysed and their threatened status in the Iberian Peninsula.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"4\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c2\" namest=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eBat boxes not user species (BNU)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c4\" namest=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eBat boxes user species (BBU)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSpecies\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eUICN List\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSpecies\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eUICN List\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMyotis blythii\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVu A2ac\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePipistrellus pipistrellus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMyotis capaccinii\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEN B2ab(ii)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePipistrellus pygmaeus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLC\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMyotis daubentonii\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePipistrellus kuhlii\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMyotis myotis\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVu A2ac\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNyctalus leisleri\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMiniopterus schreibersii\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVu A2ac\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNyctalus lasiopterus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVu B1ab(iii)D1\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePlecotus austriacus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEptesicus serotinus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRhinolophus euryale\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVu A2ac\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eEptesicus isabellinus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e-\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRhinolophus ferrumequinum\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePlecotus auritus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRhinolophus hipposideros\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBarbastella barbastellus\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eNT\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eRhinolophus mehelyi\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEN A3c\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSeveral studies (Salinas-Ramos et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR93\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) showed that bat morphology (wing shape, skull morphology and echolocation calls characteristics) determines the space occupied and prey type. This way, we can find bat species that share trophic niches, with similar diets and could trigger inter-specific competence phenomenon between them (Lis\u0026oacute;n and Calvo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015a\u003c/span\u003e; Salinas‐Ramos et al. 2020; Froidevaux et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Although bats show the capacity to separate their niche spatially or temporally to avoid competition (Lis\u0026oacute;n and Calvo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Roeleke et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR85\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), studies on interspecific interactions in bat communities are scarce. Recently, it was observed that bat species are capable to recognise the echolocation calls of other bat species and avoid sharing the same areas (Schuchmann et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR95\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Roeleke et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR85\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Lewanzik et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). This way, there is an indirect exclusion competition. Hence, an increase in the population of some species due to the availability of artificial roosts could alter the natural equilibrium of bat communities if the competitive interactions grow. For this reason, it is necessary to explore and highlight this conservation issue to avoid future problems and therefore, bat boxes actions should be coordinated.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe hypothesize that the installation of these elements and a massive proliferation of them could threaten other bat species more vulnerable bat species due to the niche competition. To assess this, we calculated the overlapping degree between the bat species that use bat boxes and those that do not, specifically: 1) To determine the niche of these bat species through habitat suitability models; 2) To compare the overlapping degree between both bat groups; 3) To elaborate optimal maps for the installation of bat boxes through optimization algorithm; and 4) To discuss the implications for the conservation of this action.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Material and methods","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.1. Species distribution data\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe used presence/absence distribution data of bat species present in the Iberian Peninsula nested in 10x10 km\u003csup\u003e2\u003c/sup\u003e UTM cells. The dataset of bat distribution was elaborated from the distribution maps of \u0026ldquo;Atlas y Libro Rojo de los Mam\u0026iacute;feros Terrestres de Espa\u0026ntilde;a\u0026rdquo; (Gisbert and Palomo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e) and \u0026ldquo;Atlas dos morcegos de Portugal\u0026rdquo; (Rainho et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR82\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e). This dataset was updated with new records with the same resolution from personal surveys and references (Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e; Lis\u0026oacute;n and S\u0026aacute;nchez-Fern\u0026aacute;ndez \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). We did not use those bat species with less than 40 records as well as we did not include the twin species \u003cem\u003eMyotis nattereri/escalerai\u003c/em\u003e because there is uncertainty in its distribution (Gisbert and Palomo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e). For the species \u003cem\u003eEptesicus serotinus\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eE. isabellinus\u003c/em\u003e, we considered the distribution of the latter as limited to the south and south east of Iberia (Andalusia and Murcia; Gisbert and Palomo, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e), however, we acknowledge that there is overlapping between them (Lis\u0026oacute;n \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Bat species were grouped into two categories: 1) Bat boxes users\u0026rsquo; species (BBU), and 2) Bat boxes not users (BNU; Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e) according to the data recorded from Spain and other European countries (Alcalde et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Supplementary Material 1). Some bat species can occur in bat boxes too in other countries, but we used here those that frequently occur in bat boxes in Spain. We did not include some Iberian species with little data about their diet or ecology such as \u003cem\u003eTadarida teniotis\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eHypsugo savii\u003c/em\u003e and others. The bat species which do not use bat boxes are mainly subterranean (caves, mines and basements), while the other group has fissure habits or roosts in holes in the trees (Gisbert and Palomo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.2. Species distribution model and environmental variables\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe used MaxEnt software to estimate the potential distribution of each bat species in the Iberian Peninsula using as response variable the species' presence records and as covariates a set of 17 environmental variables grouped into five categories: climate, soil characteristics, topography, human activity, and land cover (Supplementary Material 2). We chose Maxent because it is a software with a wide implementation in the species distribution modelling (Ahmed et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e) and because high predictive performances are often reported (e.g. (Elith and Graham \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Heikkinen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e). Selected covariates did not present a correlation between them (\u003cem\u003ePearson \u0026lt; |0.7|\u003c/em\u003e), avoiding multicollinearity in our species distribution models (Dormann et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe clarify that for species \u003cem\u003eM. capaccinii\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eE. isabellinus\u003c/em\u003e their models were fitted with 9 and 14 environmental variables, respectively. This was done following the general rule of 1:10, which is the ratio between the maximum number of covariate predictors that a model should have according to the number of presence records in order to avoid overfitting (Harrell et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1984\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, \u003cem\u003eM. capaccinii\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eE. isabellinus\u003c/em\u003e had less than 170 than the rest of the species (see Supplementary Material 3 and 4). To select the final covariates, we first fitted models using all 17 covariates using MaxEnt's default modelling options. Then the 9 and 14 covariates that contributed the most to the predictions of the models according to the MaxEnt algorithm were chosen for \u003cem\u003eM. capaccinii\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eE. isabellinus\u003c/em\u003e, respectively.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.3. Model optimization and evaluation\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eMaxEnt has different hyperparameters (i. e. model options that control the calibration process of the model), which could affect the performance of the predictions according to its values (Morales et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR71\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). We tested all possible combinations between \"features\" (linear, quadratic, product, threshold, and hinge) and \"regularization multiplier\" (0.5; 0.75; 1.0; 1.25, ... 7) in a frame of 10-fold cross-validation using randomly a 70% of the data to calibrate (i. e. training) and the 30% remaining to validate (i. e. testing). Then, we used the AUC of each model type as a metric of the performance of the different combinations of hyperparameters. Therefore, we selected the model with the best AUC metric. Finally, after model optimization, the presence probabilities of each species were estimated using 100% of data (Supplementary Material 6 and 8).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe used R software (R Core Team \u003cspan citationid=\"CR81\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e) to implement all our analyses. The hyperparameters optimization was made with the \"\u003cem\u003etrain\u003c/em\u003e\" function of the \u003cem\u003ecaret\u003c/em\u003e R package (Kuhn \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e; Corr\u0026ecirc;a, P. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). To be able to use MaxEnt through the \u003cem\u003etrain\u003c/em\u003e function, the \u0026ldquo;maxentCaret\u0026rdquo; R object was placed in the \u0026ldquo;method'\u0026rdquo; option of said function, which is obtained through the \u003cem\u003ecaretSDM\u003c/em\u003e package (Corr\u0026ecirc;a, P. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e\u003cem\u003e2.4. Favourability data and calculating the interaction between both bat groups\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAfter estimating the potential distribution of each bat species in our study area, the presence probability of each species was converted into favourability values (Supplementary Material 7 and 9) with the following function:\u003cdiv id=\"Equa\" class=\"Equation\"\u003e\u003cdiv format=\"TEX\" class=\"mathdisplay\" id=\"FileID_Equa\" name=\"EquationSource\"\u003e\n$${F}_{i}=\\frac{\\frac{{P}_{i}}{(1-{P}_{i})}}{\\frac{{n}_{1}}{{n}_{0}}+\\frac{P}{(1-{P}_{i})}},$$\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ewhere \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\({P}_{i}\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e is the estimated probability of presence in a UTM cell \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\(i\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\({n}_{1}\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e is the total number of presences for a species, and \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\({n}_{0}\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e its total number of absences. This function removes the effect of species prevalence in the predicted probabilities (i. e. presence/absence relation of species in a model), this way the predictions are more commensurable and comparable between species (Real et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR84\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThen, we used the favourability maps to understand the probability of interaction between two species of each group. We calculate this probability using the following equation:\u003cdiv id=\"Equb\" class=\"Equation\"\u003e\u003cdiv format=\"TEX\" class=\"mathdisplay\" id=\"FileID_Equb\" name=\"EquationSource\"\u003e\n$${S}_{i}\\left(A,B\\right)=2\\frac{{F}_{i}^{A} {F}_{i}^{B}}{{F}_{i}^{A}+{F}_{i}^{B}} .$$\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ewhere \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\({F}_{i}^{A}\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e is the favourability of species \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\(A\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e in the UTM cell \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\(i\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e, while \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\({F}_{i}^{B}\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e represents the favourability of species \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\(B\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e in the cell \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\(i\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e. The \u003cspan class=\"InlineEquation\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"mathinline\"\u003e\\({S}_{i}\\left(A,B\\right)\\)\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e index ranged between 0 and 1, where 0 value means a low interaction measure and 1 value means a total interaction. Then, we categorized the cells into four categories according to their interaction index: 1) \u0026ldquo;Low\u0026rdquo; (\u0026le;\u0026thinsp;0.3); 2) \u0026ldquo;Medium\u0026rdquo; (\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;0.3 and \u0026le;\u0026thinsp;0.6); 3) \u0026ldquo;High\u0026rdquo; (\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;0.6 and \u0026le;\u0026thinsp;0.8); and \u0026ldquo;Very high\u0026rdquo; (\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;0.8). We used these categories to make risk maps of interaction between species (Supplementary Material 10 to 19).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.5. Optimal areas for bat boxes installation\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo identify and map the optimal areas for bat boxes installation, we first determine for each bat species a suitable habitat map where the favourability value was \u0026ge;\u0026thinsp;0.7 in the UTM cell. Although, some studies recommend as suitable habitats those areas with a favourability value\u0026thinsp;\u0026ge;\u0026thinsp;0.5 (Acevedo and Real \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e), we preferred 0.7 to decrease the uncertainty of our estimations. Therefore, we considered optimal areas for bat boxes installation those areas where the favourability was low for species BNU and high for BBU species.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe calculated optimization maps for the bat boxes installation where we guarantee a minimum of 5, 10, 15 and 20% (Solution 1 to 4) of the favourable habitat for all BNU species and where there is a low competition with the other bat group (BBU). To identify these maps, we used the \u0026ldquo;\u003cem\u003eproblem\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e and \u0026ldquo;\u003cem\u003esolve\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e functions of the \u003cem\u003eprioritizr\u003c/em\u003e package (Hanson, et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e) for R software. The solutions for these four problems were made with the open source solver called SYMPHONY, which is available in the \u003cem\u003eRsymphony\u003c/em\u003e package (Harter et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) for R. To apply these solutions, in the option \"\u003cem\u003ecost_column\u003c/em\u003e\u0026rdquo; (objective to minimize) of the \u003cem\u003eproblem\u003c/em\u003e function, we put the competition values, which were calculated as the sum of the environmental favourability of the bat species that use boxes, following the recommendations of Estrada et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e) and Real et al. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR84\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e), which is a diversity index proxy.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"3. Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe results of habitat suitability models for our species show a high performance, with a mean AUC of 0.8 with a range from 0.70 to 0.92 (Supplementary Material 3). The contribution of each environmental variable for each bat species was summarised in Supplementary Material 4. Our results show that there is a great overlapping between the favourability areas for both bat groups (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e; Supplementary Material 5), where we found that BNU species had an overlap mean of 51.8% with the other bat group.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe interaction maps between both bat groups evidence that there are extensive areas where could have a high risk for the more threatened bat species (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e; Supplementary Material 5). The favourable areas for BNU species overlap with nine BBU species and therefore, increasing the possibility of competitive exclusion (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.1. Optimal areas for bat boxes installation\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eOur results show the optimal areas for the installation of bat boxes where we can conserve a minimum of the favourable areas for BNU species while reducing the competition with the other group of bat species (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). These maps show that the non-favourable areas to install bat boxes are placed in the east and south of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly. The solution 4 provides a high quantity of favourable areas preserved (minimum of 20%) for BNU species and it is the best optimal solution. The north and west of the Iberian Peninsula were identified as areas suitable for the installation of bat boxes (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4. Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eOur results showed that the overlap between the favourability areas of the two bat groups is high (\u0026gt;\u0026thinsp;50%), this is evidence that direct and/or indirect competitive interactions could appear between them. Some studies have evidenced that the bats experience competition between species and most of them try to avoid it, spatially or temporally (Lis\u0026oacute;n and Calvo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Corcoran and Conner \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Corcoran \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). In the Iberian Peninsula, the pipistrelles/serotine have a high overlap in the favourability areas of two threatened species, \u003cem\u003eM. capaccinii\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eM. schreibersii\u003c/em\u003e. The diet analysis evidences that their prey selection is similar (Goiti et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e; Almenar et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e; Bartonička et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e; Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015a\u003c/span\u003e; Froidevaux et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). It was observed competitive interactions between \u003cem\u003eM. daubentonii\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eP. pipistrellus\u003c/em\u003e in several European countries (Todd and Williamson \u003cspan citationid=\"CR102\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Also, there is a high overlapping between the diets of rhinolophids and the pipistrelles/serotine (Lino et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR54\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Aldasoro et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e), where some authors found a negative interaction between \u003cem\u003eR. hipposideros\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eP. pipistrellus\u003c/em\u003e (Arlettaz et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2000\u003c/span\u003e), being the first in declination. Aside of the direct competition in bat species, there also could be an indirect competition, since some studies showed that bat species avoided those areas where there is an excessive presence of other bats (Lintott et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Roeleke et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR85\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Beilke et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Pedersen et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR76\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). This phenomenon, called eavesdropping (Fenton \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2003\u003c/span\u003e), is observed between pipistrelles and other species (Todd and Williamson \u003cspan citationid=\"CR102\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Lewanzik et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Salinas-Ramos et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR93\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOur analysis identified areas where it is not recommendable to install bat boxes since they could potentially interact negatively with other threatened bat species and where the bat conservation efforts should be driven towards other species, especially cave-dwelling bats. These areas are mainly in the east and south of the Iberian Peninsula, probably because is where the largest population of \u003cem\u003eM. capaccinii\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eM. schreibersii\u003c/em\u003e appears to be (Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR61\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e). Both are strict cave-dwelling species and are very threatened. Also, in the Mediterranean region, we can find two threatened rhinolophids species (\u003cem\u003eR. mehelyi\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eR. euryale\u003c/em\u003e; Lis\u0026oacute;n et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e). These risk areas should be taken into consideration to elaborate a national or regional conservation strategy and contribute with information for correct management inside and outside of the Natura 2000 network (Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBat conservation implicates mainly undertaking coordinated conservation policies, with actions addressed to protect all the groups and prioritising those more vulnerable species. This occasionally forces to regulate these actions. All bat species at the European level are protected through the Natura 2000 network (Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR61\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e), however, while the Annex II bat species are underground and we have reasonable estimations of their populations, there is more uncertainty with regards to the population of the Annex IV bat species. This situation could produce important biases in management plans for both groups inside and outside of protected areas (Lis\u0026oacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015b\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Lis\u0026oacute;n and S\u0026aacute;nchez-Fern\u0026aacute;ndez \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBat boxes in Europe, independently of the model, are favourable for one or two species, mainly pipistrelles (Flaquer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Dodds and Bilston \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Collins et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; S\u0026aacute;nchez-Poveda \u003cspan citationid=\"CR94\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e), being a global pattern where the bat boxes only are occupied by few species (Koschnicke et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2010\u003c/span\u003e; Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Rueegger et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR88\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Godinho et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). This causes that those species which benefit from the bat boxes are very scarce and could produce biases towards generalist and not threatened species (Rueegger \u003cspan citationid=\"CR87\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). However, even when studies about the role of bat boxes causing changes to the bat communities are scarce, and these is only one study made in urban areas (Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) reporting that the bat community did not change, other studies showed that in those areas where the bat boxes were installed, the bat community started to be absolutely dominated by the bat boxes user species, and therefore the role of bat boxes as a conservation tool is debatable (Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). Incipient studies about the relationship of bat species in the same space showed that the presence of determined species could indirectly affect the activity of the other (Corcoran and Conner \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Lewanzik et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Salinas-Ramos et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR93\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) and it could happen temporal niche segregation between them (Lis\u0026oacute;n and Calvo \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, we believe that studies that go deeper into this issue are necessary deep studies to understand the complex interspecific interactions on bats.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOn the other hand, the bat-boxes users are mainly species with migratory patterns (Smeraldo et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR98\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e), while the other group has sedentary patterns (Smeraldo et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR99\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), which could explain the seasonal variability in the occupation of bat boxes (Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). This is an interesting point because bat species, which do not use the bat boxes are more dependent on the local resources to support the hibernation period. Also, the bat boxes users have increased their current distribution due to climate change (Ancillotto et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Smeraldo et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR98\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e), and it is possible that, in the future, we will find new competitive interactions where before there were none before.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThese results show that a policy of bat boxes installation without control or planning could alter the bat communities present in some areas. Bat boxes had been criticized as conservation measures due to their specific bias and their influence on the conservation of bat populations (Rueegger \u003cspan citationid=\"CR87\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e). Although bat boxes are considered a tool to improve the absence of roosts for some species (Flaquer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; L\u0026oacute;pez-Baucells et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e), they should be a complement within a big conservation strategy for all bat species (e.g. making also roosts for bats with underground habits (Stumpf et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR100\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e)), especially focusing on the more vulnerable species. Indeed, the installation of bat boxes is not enough to compensate anthropic alterations such as land-use changes, roads, pesticides, light or acoustic contamination, prey absence, etc (Russo and Ancillotto \u003cspan citationid=\"CR89\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Lis\u0026oacute;n and S\u0026aacute;nchez-Fern\u0026aacute;ndez \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Russo et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR91\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Frick et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Ramalho and Aguiar \u003cspan citationid=\"CR83\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Domer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Bhardwaj et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe fact that humans can artificially increase the populations of some bat species and the effect it has on other species has not yet been evaluated. For example, it had been observed in canids that feral dogs can compete directly with other species such as wolves, foxes, etc, and could alter the behaviour of the natural populations (Wilson et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR105\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). As a matter of fact, in bats, there happens a phenomena of indirect exclusion as some studies found, where bats avoided areas where other bat species appeared because the bats actively listened to the present bat community (Schuchmann et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR95\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Roeleke et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR85\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Lewanzik et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1. Other considerations about an uncontrolled bat boxes policy for bat conservation\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn addition to the adverse effects that could produce an extensive installation of bat boxes, we must consider the high risk that the bat boxes represent to the bat species themselves due to the materials and colours used, the orientation, etc, especially in the Mediterranean area (Louren\u0026ccedil;o and Palmeirim \u003cspan citationid=\"CR65\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e; Flaquer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Doty et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Martin Bideguren et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR66\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Fontaine et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). Precisely, our optimization maps highlight that those Mediterranean areas are not suitable to install bat boxes. It is expected that in the future, with climate change and an increase in temperatures, many of the bat boxes installed will actually become bat traps (Flaquer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Mering and Chambers \u003cspan citationid=\"CR68\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; L\u0026oacute;pez-Baucells et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Martin Bideguren et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR66\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Crawford and O\u0026rsquo;Keefe \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Fontaine et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Crawford et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn most cases, the bat boxes are installed in harmful areas for bats such as urban areas (Russo and Ancillotto \u003cspan citationid=\"CR89\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e), light or acoustic contaminated areas (Russo et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR90\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR91\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Voigt et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR103\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Jiang et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Haddock et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Seewagen and Adams \u003cspan citationid=\"CR96\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e), roads where bats have accidents (Ramalho and Aguiar \u003cspan citationid=\"CR83\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Also, it was observed negative interaction with invasive bird species (Hern\u0026aacute;ndez-Brito et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). This could explain the low occupancy levels of bat boxes in the Iberian Peninsula where it is around 40% (Poulton \u003cspan citationid=\"CR78\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2006\u003c/span\u003e; Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; S\u0026aacute;nchez-Poveda \u003cspan citationid=\"CR94\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Indeed, there is an increased risk since wind energy will develop greatly (Serrano et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR97\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e), where the species which use bat boxes will be threatened by these infrastructures (Roemer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR86\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Bhardwaj et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe do not have information if the bat boxes (occupied by solitary individuals or small groups of bat species) could modify the genetic dynamics of populations, which normally present an scarce genetic flow (Metheny et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR69\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2008\u003c/span\u003e; Bryja et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Moussy et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR72\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2013\u003c/span\u003e; August et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Sagot et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR92\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). Bat boxes should increase the exchange of individuals, altering host-parasite patterns in populations and producing an increase in the diseases caused by ecto- and endoparasites (Witsenburg et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR106\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e; Mill\u0026aacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR70\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; L\u0026eacute;ger \u003cspan citationid=\"CR52\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; M\u0026uuml;ller et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR74\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; N\u0026uacute;\u0026ntilde;ez-Montero et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR75\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e), including hyper-parasitism unknown relationships (Szentiv\u0026aacute;nyi et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR101\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). This is not only a health issue in the bat populations, but it also can emerge into new zoonosis. (e.g. rabies, mycoplasmas, Brucella, Bartonella, etc; (M\u0026uuml;hldorfer et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR73\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2011\u003c/span\u003e; Mill\u0026aacute;n et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR70\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; M\u0026uuml;ller et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR74\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Frutos et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe bat boxes installation that happened in the last years has been, on some occasions, due to marketing campaigns or \u0026ldquo;greenwashing\u0026rdquo; of companies and governments without a conservation strategy that supports them. The main deficiencies that present these actions are: 1) There is not a monitoring plan in the long term to control their occupancy; 2) There is not a replacement plan to substitute those bat boxes lost by vandalism or normal wear; 3) There is not an analysis about the possible interactions with other more threatened bat species; 4) Their installation does not get accompanied by other conservation actions such as landscape improvement, pesticide suppression, growth in the prey populations, reducing the light or acoustic contamination, etc., and 5) The bat boxes installations are punctual actions in the time and space without coordination with other conservation policies that allow an effective assignation of resources. The data observed in the projects of bat boxes installations (Rueegger \u003cspan citationid=\"CR87\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e; Rueegger et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR88\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Alcalde et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e) show that after two or three years (the length of the project), the bat boxes are not monitored ever again, are abandoned and not replaced, or simply there is no data about their occupancy. Only some research groups make continuous monitoring of them and evaluate other questions (L\u0026oacute;pez-Baucells et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e; Griffiths et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Martin Bideguren et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR66\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Pschonny et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR79\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Although bat boxes would have a pedagogical effect and would benefit an increase of positive attitudes towards bats (P\u0026eacute;rez et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR77\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Boso et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Meli et al. \u003cspan citationid=\"CR67\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e), these ephemeral actions and short term plans could have a negative effect on the people because they could generate a sensation of uselessness if the measures do not have positive results.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5. Conclusions","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe bat boxes have demonstrated that they can be a suitable complement to conserve some bat species, a tool for pest suppression and a pedagogical tool for conservation. However, due to its biased use for generalist and not threatened species and its inefficiency to conserve all bat groups, they must be used carefully. Indeed, there are many questions that must be resolved before the extensive implantation of bat boxes, such as the possible interactions between species, competition, disease transmission or emergent zoonosis, light and acoustic pollution, effect or damage of lineal infrastructures (roads, wing farms, etc). This way, it is necessary to analyse beforehand if the installation of bat boxes is essential and if its use should be limited. We provide easy guidelines (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e) to determine if the action of bat boxes installation for bats is suitable. This flowchart is framed inside of the \u003cem\u003eprecautionary principle\u003c/em\u003e. Inside a conservation strategy for all bat species, our study shows that the bat boxes in the Iberian Peninsula should be implemented carefully, and the resources should be invested in other actions beneficial for the group such as tree planting, pesticide reduction, increasing the availability of prey, and landscape conservation. We are not against the installation of bat boxes but our results highlight that the conservation actions on some occasions could be negative or pitfall conservation actions, and it is necessary to discuss the effectiveness of certain measures for bat conservation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConflicts of interest\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no conflict of interest.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics Statement\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo applicable\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eConceptualization, F.L.; methodology, F.L. and C.M-O.; validation, F.L. and C.M-O; formal analysis, F.L and C.M-O.; investigation, F.L., C.M-O., and J.C.; resources, funding and project administration, F.L., J.C. and A.W.; writing\u0026mdash;original draft preparation, F.L.; writing\u0026mdash;review and editing, F.L., C.M-O., J.C., and A.W. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe thank \u0026Aacute;ngeles Haz for her help with the English translation.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAcevedo P, Real R (2012) Favourability: concept, distinctive characteristics and potential usefulness. Naturwissenschaften 99:515\u0026ndash;522. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-012-0926-0\u003c/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAgnelli P, Maltagliati G, Ducci L, Cannicci S (2010) Artificial roosts for bats: education and research. The \u0026ldquo;Be a bat\u0026rsquo;s friend\u0026rdquo; project of the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence. 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Mol Ecol 24:926\u0026ndash;940. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.13071\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Chiroptera, conservation, niche competition, management, species distribution modelling","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4201171/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4201171/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eBat boxes are a key element in bat conservation policies being very popular. However, it is a biased action that is only favourable for a few bat species. In this manuscript, we hypothesize that the installation of these elements and an extensive proliferation of them could threaten other bat species more vulnerable due to the niche competition. For this, we calculated the overlapping degree between the bat species that use bat boxes and those that do not, specifically: 1) To determine the favourability area of these bat species through habitat suitability models in Iberian Peninsula; 2) To compare the overlapping degree between both bat groups; 3) To elaborate optimal maps for the installation of bat boxes through optimization algorithm; and 4) To discuss the implications for the conservation of this action. Our results showed that the overlapping between bat boxes users and the other species is high (mean 51.8%) and there are areas where a bat boxes not user species could compete with at least 9 bat boxes user species. Therefore, the installation of bat boxes could be counterproductive, and we should focus on other conservation actions. We used an optimization algorithm to find out those areas where it is not recommendable to install them and developed a flowchart to evaluate its installation in an area. In conclusion, our study highlights that conservation actions on some occasions could be negative or be a pitfall for themselves, and it is necessary to discuss the effectiveness of certain measures for bat conservation.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"From virtue to sin: is the installation of bat boxes an effective conservation measure or a potential pitfall for vulnerable bat species?","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2024-04-05 03:31:09","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4201171/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"b541ae79-a636-484a-aa7c-5bb2998678d0","owner":[],"postedDate":"April 5th, 2024","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2024-06-21T22:38:29+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2024-04-05 03:31:09","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-4201171","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-4201171","identity":"rs-4201171","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"qtupq5eGEP_6zYnWcrvyt","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}