Understanding human attitudes towards bats and the role of information and aesthetics to boost a positive response as a conservation tool.

An understanding of human attitudes towards wildlife can be an essential element in the success or failure of a conservation initiative, policy or practice and represents one of the main conservation problems for wildlife species. Despite the ecosystem services bats provide, they often are a socially stigmatized group, misperceived and even hunted. This problem has been on the increase as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We examined how aesthetic appeal and informational factors could influence human attitudes towards bats in a survey of 1966 participants from Spanish-speaking countries. Gender, educational level, religiousness and previous experiences with bats were relevant variables to understand attitudes towards them. The results indicate that both aesthetic and informational stimuli increase the positive responses, reducing the negatives on the participants' attitudes. Our results show the importance of public attitudes to achieve conservation goals, especially in the context of human-wildlife conflict. Bats are not charismatic animals and are still surrounded in mystery; however, our findings could benefit bat conservation plans, allowing the development of new communication strategies both locally and nationally and increasing public acceptance that will facilitate bat conservation.

Landscape restoration in a mixed agricultural-forest catchment: Planning a buffer strip and hedgerow network in a Chilean biodiversity hotspot.

Guidance for large-scale restoration of natural or semi-natural linear vegetation elements that takes into account the need to maintain human livelihoods such as farming is often lacking. Focusing on a Chilean biodiversity hotspot, we assessed the landscape in terms of existing woody vegetation elements and proposed a buffer strip and hedgerow network. We used spatial analysis based on Google Earth imagery and QGIS, field surveys, seven guidelines linked to prioritization criteria and seedling availability in the region's nurseries, and estimated the budget for implementing the proposed network. The target landscapes require restoring 0.89 ha km-2 of woody buffer strips to meet Chilean law; 1.4 ha km-2 of new hedgerows is also proposed. The cost of restoration in this landscape is estimated in ca. USD 6900 per planted ha of buffer strips and hedgerows. Financial incentives, education, and professional training of farmers are identified as key issues to implement the suggested restoration actions.

The invasive species Ulex europaeus (Fabaceae) shows high dynamism in a fragmented landscape of south-central Chile.

Ulex europaeus (gorse) is an invasive shrub deemed as one of the most invasive species in the world. U. europaeus is widely distributed in the south-central area of Chile, which is considered a world hotspot for biodiversity conservation. In addition to its negative effects on the biodiversity of natural ecosystems, U. europaeus is one of the most severe pests for agriculture and forestry. Despite its importance as an invasive species, U. europaeus has been little studied. Although information exists on the potential distribution of the species, the interaction of the invasion process with the spatial dynamic of the landscape and the landscape-scale factors that control the presence or absence of the species is still lacking. We studied the spatial and temporal dynamics of the landscape and how these relate to U. europaeus invasion in south-central Chile. We used supervised classification of satellite images to determine the spatial distribution of the species and other land covers for the years 1986 and 2003, analysing the transitions between the different land covers. We used logistic regression for modelling the increase, decrease and permanence of U. europaeus invasion considering landscape variables. Results showed that the species covers only around 1 % of the study area and showed a 42 % reduction in area for the studied period. However, U. europaeus was the cover type which presented the greatest dynamism in the landscape. We found a strong relationship between changes in land cover and the invasion process, especially connected with forest plantations of exotic species, which promotes the displacement of U. europaeus. The model of gorse cover increase presented the best performance, and the most important predictors were distance to seed source and landscape complexity index. Our model predicted high spread potential of U. europaeus in areas of high conservation value. We conclude that proper management for this invasive species must take into account the spatial dynamics of the landscape within the invaded area in order to address containment, control or mitigation of the invasion.