Welcome to #WingedWednesday Webinars!
Bats without Borders is dedicated to protecting bat populations across southern Africa and given our current global bat conservation challenges, our aim for these webinars is to connect people across Africa and beyond to share current research methods/findings and strengthen bat research and conservation capacity. As this is our first webinar series, it is a steep learning curve and welcome your ideas (speakers and topics) and training needs. as well as feedback on the talks.
Initially, we are aiming to hold a weekly webinar every Wednesday from 15H00 (Central African time), ranging from 30 minutes up to an hour depending on the speaker(s) and topic. We are scheduling in a diverse range of topics from latest research methods and findings findings and survey methods and analysis skills, to environmental education and engaging policy-makers.
Our webinars are being held on Zoom, please pre-register by completing the sign up form below, and we'll be able to keep you updated on our #WingedWednesday Webinars and send you joining instructions for each webinar.
Please note: you only need to register once, we are limited to 100 participants per webinars, so we will be sending out signing instructions to everyone and the first 100 to login on the day will be admitted. We apologise in advance if anyone misses out but we are recording these webinars and you can watch them later.
Initially, we are aiming to hold a weekly webinar every Wednesday from 15H00 (Central African time), ranging from 30 minutes up to an hour depending on the speaker(s) and topic. We are scheduling in a diverse range of topics from latest research methods and findings findings and survey methods and analysis skills, to environmental education and engaging policy-makers.
Our webinars are being held on Zoom, please pre-register by completing the sign up form below, and we'll be able to keep you updated on our #WingedWednesday Webinars and send you joining instructions for each webinar.
Please note: you only need to register once, we are limited to 100 participants per webinars, so we will be sending out signing instructions to everyone and the first 100 to login on the day will be admitted. We apologise in advance if anyone misses out but we are recording these webinars and you can watch them later.
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Please note from July our webinars will be the second and fourth Wednesday of every month.
Upcoming webinars
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Webinar title
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2021
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10 February 2021
24 February 2021
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Professor Danilo Russo
Dr Nikita Finger
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Bats in the Namib desert (Namibia)
tbc
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If you are enjoying our #WingedWednesday webinars, would you consider making a donation to help us cover the costs and help to keep them going? Any donation you are able to make, makes a big difference and will supports our work.
Catch up on previous webinars
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23 September 2020
Tanja Straka is a postdoctoral researcher at the Technische Universität Berlin, PostDoc Alumni from the IZW with a PhD in urban ecology from the University of Melbourne. Trained as a bat biologist and urban ecologist, Tanja has a strong interest in applying social science research to understand people and their relationship with nature or how people can work better together when it comes to conservation conflicts.
Tigga Kingston is an Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences Texas Tech University (www.kingstonlab.org) and a central figure for the conservation of bats in Southeast Asia; she is the founder and director of the Southeast Asian Bat Conservation Research Unit (www.seabcru.org), is the Old World Co-Chair for Bat Specialist Group of the IUCN’s Species Survival Commission, and the co-founder of the Global Union of Bat Diversity Networks (GBatNet). She earned a PhD degree at Boston University, USA where she studied the community ecology of bat assemblages in Peninsular Malaysia. Tigga and her lab focus on factors shaping bat diversity in unmodified habitats, the response of assemblages to land-use change and human disturbance in the Old World tropics, and how theories of human behavior can help elucidate drivers and inform mitigation. As a broadly trained urban ecologist and conservation biologist, Joanna Coleman espouses the core tenet that we should conserve biodiversity for its own sake. But, recognising that the intrinsic-value argument probably won’t sway most people, she promotes holistic solutions that tend the human aspect. Defend Nature as if your life depends on it. That’s Joanna’s motto. Indeed, she’s on a mission. To help solve the environmental crisis. Therefore, Joanna’s research interests extend beyond the biotic impacts of urbanisation on wildlife in general, and bats in particular (her specialty), and into human-Nature relationships, especially in cities. She obtained her PhD at University of Calgary in the lab of Prof Robert Barclay, whose dedication to and passion for quality education and supervision inspired her own teaching. Joanna is a Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore, where she teaches in the Department of Biological Sciences and the interdisciplinary Bachelor of Environmental Studies Programme. Ewan Macdonald’s research focuses on the application of marketing approaches to the field of wildlife conservation. Ewan is a conservation biologist with broad, interdisciplinary interests that range from spatial conservation prioritisation for the Sunda clouded leopard in Borneo, through conservation ethics to the impact of socio-political and economic factors on the likelihood of conservation success. Ewan has a long held an interest in how people relate to conservation issues and during his DPhil, he developed a strong interest in the psychology of behaviour change and its application to conservation. Ewan's desire to learn from existing experts in the field of marketing led him to develop collaborations first with a commercial market research firm (Touchstone Partners), and more recently with the Future of Marketing Initiative at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, where he is now based as a FOMI Fellow in Conservation Marketing. |
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9 September 2020
Peter Taylor is the South African Research Chair (SARChI) on Biodiversity Value & Change, and Professor of Zoology at the University of Venda. Valerie Linden and Sina Weier are SARChl Postdoctoral Fellows on Biodiversity Value & Change at the University of Venda.
In recent years, both experimental exclosure and modeling studies based on bat diet have revealed the enormous benefit of crop pest predation by bats. In South Africa, the lucrative macadamia industry provides a model agroecosystem to work in, with much cooperation between growers and researchers at University of Venda and Goettingen University in Germany. Modeling estimates based only on stink bug damage and bat diet suggested that bats save growers about $150/ha/yr in avoided stink bug damages. These estimates have been superseded by exclosure experiments showing that bats save growers as much as $2500/ha/yr in avoided insect pest damages (This value increases to $5000/ha when the effects of birds are added). As vouched from several recent studies on different continents and in different agricultural systems, it is highly likely that wherever intact bat communities are encouraged worldwide, they would have similar benefits in terms of pest control. We also caution that the degradation and removal of natural habitats in agricultural matrixes can have a devastating negative impact on ecosystem service provision by bats, not to mention other natural predators and pollinators. |
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26 August 2020
Visit the South African Bat Assessment Association website to find out more!
Kate MacEwan is a wildlife and environmental scientist with over 22 years of experience, 17 of which, where she has successfully run her own businesses (Inkululeko Wildlife Services). Kate’s extensive wildlife and environmental experience covers a broad range of sectors in Africa, including mining (coal, gold, platinum, chrome, steel and tin), waste management (hazardous, domestic and recycling waste), housing developments and predominantly, the renewable energy sector (wind and power distribution networks). For the last 8 years, Kate has worked on the impact of wind energy on bats and birds in Africa and has chaired the South African Bat Assessment Association for 7 years. She is the lead author on the 5th edition of the South African Best Practice Guidelines for Pre-construction Monitoring of Bats at Wind Energy Facilities and the 2nd edition of the South African Bat Fatality Threshold Guidelines, and co-author on the South African Good Practise Guidelines for Operational Monitoring for Bats at Wind Energy Facilities. Jonathan Aronson has 13 years of experience studying and researching bats and has presented at the International Bat Research Conference and numerous local bat workshops and symposia. He has been at the forefront of bats and wind energy research in South Africa and has worked on more than 70 WEF projects in South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia and the UK undertaking pre-construction monitoring, operational monitoring, impact assessments and mitigation strategy design. He is a co-author of the Good Practise Guidelines for Surveying Bats at Wind Energy Facilities in South Africa, is the lead author on the operational monitoring guidelines for bats and is a founding member of the South African Bat Assessment Advisory Panel (SABAAP). He is registered as a Professional Natural Scientist (Ecological Science) with SACNASP. Jonathan is currently enrolled as a Masters Student at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam where he is studying Environment and Resource Management, specialising in Energy and Climate. |
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12 August 2020
Christian Voigt is the Head of Department for Evoluntionary Ecology at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW), in Berlin (www.batlab.de). Christian studied at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, where he graduated in 1998 under the supervision of Prof. Otto von Helversen with a doctoral degree in zoology. Afterwards, he worked as a DAAD postdoc at Boston University and Cornell University (U.S.A.) on the socio-biology and sensory ecology of bats. After a brief postdoc at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, he became staff researcher at the Leibniz-IZW, where he has been working since 2001. In 2007, he finished his “Habilitation” at the Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin, where he taught as a Privatdozent* until 2010. Since 2010, he has been teaching Behavioral Ecology and topical class (Human-Wildlife Conflicts, Biology of bats) at the Freie Universität Berlin. Christian is an associate editor for two scientific journals, member of the UNEP/EUROBATS advisory board and various academic societies. He has published more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals and edited an e-book on ‘Bats in the Anthropocene’.
Tanja Straka is a postdoctoral researcher at the Technische Universität Berlin, PostDoc Alumni from the IZW with a PhD in urban ecology from the University of Melbourne. Trained as a bat biologist and urban ecologist, Tanja has a strong interest in applying social science research to understand people and their relationship with nature or how people can work better together when it comes to conservation conflicts as in this publication she presented in the webinar: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2020.06.028 |
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22 July 2020
Cullen K. Geiselman holds a BA in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University and an MA and PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Columbia University. Her research focuses on seed dispersal and pollination by bats and she coauthored a book with botanists from the New York Botanical Garden entitled Seed Dispersal by Bats in the Neotropics. She curates the Bat Eco-Interactions Database (www.batbase.org), which catalogs all published interactions between bats and other organisms to facilitate scientific research on bats, their diets, and the ecosystem services they provide.
To contact the project please e-mail: info@batbase.org |
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8 July 2020
Helen Taylor-Boyd is a PhD Researcher at the University of Stirling (Scotland) investigating bats in an agricultural landscape in Zambia. We are delighted to have her as part of the Bats without Borders team as our Research and Conservation Officer. Helen grew up in Zambia and is passionate about biodiversity conservation and works tirelessly to promote bats through research, advocacy and engagement.
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24 June 2020
Orly Razgour is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter (UK). She is molecular ecologist and conservation biologist, researching evolutionary and ecological responses to global environmental change. Her research is interdisciplinary and sits at the interface between ecology, molecular biology, evolutionary biology and physical geography.
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17 June 2020
Wanda Markotter is Director of the Centre for Viral Zoonsoes, South Africa. She is also occupying a South African Research Chair funded by the South African government through the Department of Science and innovation. Her multidisciplinary research focuses on viral pathogens in African bats.
Kirsty Park is the Chair of the Board for Bats without Borders and a Trustee with the UK-based Bat Conservation Trust. She is a Professor of Conservation Science at the University of Stirling where her research focuses on the effects of anthropogenic change on biodiversity and developing solutions to mitigate the impacts of humans on wildlife. Ricard Rocha is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Biological and Genetic Resources, University of Porto (CIBIO-InBIO) in Portugal. He is a trained tropical ecologist and did his PhD on landscape ecology of Amazonian bats in Brazil. Ricardo has also worked extensively in Kenya and Madagascar and is currently working on ecosystem services provided by bats on Madeira island, Portugal. |
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10 June 2020
Merlin Tuttle from Merlin Tuttle's Bat Conservation (MTBC) is an ecologist, passionate conservationist and well known photographer. Merlin gives us insights into his 60 years of experience of engaging a variety of different stakeholders and how he went about 'winning friends for bats'.
This webinar also features Teresa Nichta Operations Manager and Co-founder of MTBC. We highly recommend you watch 'the power of winning friends not battles' to give more background to the important role of engagement in bat conservation. |
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3 June 2020
Carrie Seltzer is a Stakeholder Engagement Strategist at iNaturalist, a citizen scientist platform to promote and encourage people to connect with nature. Every records can contribute to biological science - be part of the community! Not only can you share your records, but you can help to identify species and also use open-source data (uploaded into GBIF) for your research!
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27 May 2020
Ara Monadjem is a Professor at the University of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). He is a zoologist, focusing on the ecology and conservation of African small mammals (bats and rodents) and large birds (vultures, eagles and storks).
Ara has traveled extensively across Africa surveying bats and is one of the co-authors of the Bats of southern and Central Africa book. We are delighted to announce that the second edition will be released in August 2020. |
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20 May 2020
Hernani F. M. Oliveira did his PhD at Queen Mary University of London investigating the impact of severe floods and droughts on molecular food webs of bats in rainforests in Costa Rica. He then did a Postdoc at Charles University on altitudinal and seasonal changes on biodiversity patterns of Mt Cameroon (Africa). More recently, he did a Postdoc at Iowa State University studying seed dispersal of Mariana fruit bats on Pacific island of Rota (Oceania).
With more than 2 million Km2, the Brazilian savannas (Cerrado) are a biodiversity hotspot, with a rich bat fauna (~120 bat species) that has high deforestation rates mainly due to cattle ranching and soybean cultivation. During the webinar, Hernani F. M. Oliveira, explores how the diversity of bats and their interactions on the Brazilian savannas are affected and respond to such threats. Google citations |
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13 May 2020
Our first speaker, Nancy Simmons is an internationally renowned evolutionary biologist and morphologist, her interests range from patterns of species diversity, biogeography and evolution of flight, echolocation and dietary habits and early Tertiary bat fossils. She completed her PhD at the University of California and is currently the Curator-in-Charge of the Department of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History and a Professor at the Richard Gilder Graduate School.
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