n collaboration with our extensive network of global partners, Bat Conservation International (BCI) is hard at work saving the world’s 1,400+ bat species from extinction. Global conservation work is the core of what we do to fulfill our mission of saving bats from extinction, and in this issue, we highlight the people involved with our work, the communities we engage with, and the tangible impact we’re making.

For more than 35 years, BCI’s Student Scholarship program has funded more than 400 scholars conducting bat-focused research in 80 countries. In the Bat Chat Q&A, we sit down with one of these incredible Student Scholars, Carme Tuneu-Corral, Ph.D., who has conducted fieldwork in Madagascar and Spain focusing on the impact of bats in agroecosystems. We also tell the story of an African bat monitoring network that focuses on the straw-colored fruit bat (Eidolon helvum). This network includes collaborators in 13 countries all working to keep tabs on the species and protect it.

hile home gardens are often awash in colorful flowers and foliage, the walls of Glenys Shone’s garden in Ndola, Zambia, are painted with bats. Green stylized silhouettes of bats in flight and a roosting bat with a mouthful of fruit are displayed against a bright yellow backdrop.

The art is paired with cheerful hand-painted text imploring passers-by to not disturb the large group of straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) roosting in the garden from September to January. “We disperse seeds from the fruit we eat so more trees can grow,” reads one placard. “Trees are essential to the environment, and so are we.”

arme Tuneu-Corral, Ph.D., is a Bat Conservation International (BCI) Student Scholar who recently completed her doctoral work, which included fieldwork in Madagascar and Spain. Tuneu-Corral first became a BCI Student Scholar in 2020, and here she shares her work focusing on the impact of bats on agroecosystems, like farms and gardens.

We used a field experiment using large structures called exclosures, which prevent bats from accessing specific areas of croplands (in our case, rice paddies). I created small “imaginary worlds” without bats, which allowed me to measure the impact of pests on crops in both the presence and absence of bats. By comparing the crop damage levels in both conditions, I was able to estimate the amount of rice yield loss prevented by bats and the resulting economic savings for farmers, expressed in Euros.