Migration
Bats migrate throughout Europe. The three commonest species are the Nathusius Pipistrelle, the common Noctule bat and the Leisler's bat. These species can cross seas and migrate along coastlines.
Three projects on this topic are currently running:
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Bat migration routes in Europe
The goal of this european project is to study the spatio-temporal distribution of three common migrating bats using acoustic datasets. This collaborative project gathers together more than 70 bat researchers and workers from more than 20 countries. The activity hotspots will be used to define areas of conservation priority for bats. One of the goals of this project is to produce operational maps to guide wind energy development. You can find additional information and subscribe to the newsletter here: bat-migration-europe.netlify.app
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Piaff&Co
The PIAFF&CO project allows to increase knowledge about flying fauna, including bats, in the scope of offshore wind energy. The project is coordinated by Centrale Nantes, the CESCO lab from the French Museum of Natural History, the offshore wind farm of Saint-Nazaire and BW Ideol. The PIAFF&CO project aims at collecting data on the site of SEM-REV-floating wind turbine FloatGen (© BW Ideol), located 19 km off the coast of the Croisic, using different monitoring methods, including acoustics, to enhance our knowledge of the marine environment. The goal is to characterise bat activity offshore and to determine interactions between bats and wind turbines (mortality). You can find out more about the project here (French only):
https://sem-rev.ec-nantes.fr/sem-rev/actualites/piaffco-projet-de-suivi-oiseaux-chauves-souris
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Migratlane
Migratlane is a project aiming at characterising, at the scale of the French North-East Atlantic, bat (and bird) migration offshore in the scope of wind energy development. This characterisation is based on acoustic datasets collected along French coastlines of the Channel and the Atlantic by the Vigie-Chiro programme but also on data collected very recently (thanks to the Piaff&Co project) along coastlines and also offshore (islands, buoys, boats). This project will bring up pioneering knowledge on the timing and most used pathways for migrating bats and also flight altitudes of bats flying accross the sea.
