The Ecological Society of Australia is pleased to announce Oliver Aylen as the 2022 Fundamental Ecology Award winner. Oli is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales.

Bats are the second most-diverse order of mammals, in Australia and globally, and provide vital ecosystem services like pest control and pollination. However, more than 30 per cent of global bat species are listed as threatened or data deficient due to habitat alteration and introduced predators. Despite this, they are often overlooked in academic research due to their cryptic nature and difficulty to study.

PhD student Oliver Aylen is exploring the role that fenced conservation reserves may have on bat communities in arid zones.

“Fenced conservation reserves are a primary tool to protect native, threatened species both in Australia, and globally,” said Oliver.

“These areas allow species to thrive, removed from issues such as land-use change and introduced predators…but there are no studies on whether bats benefit.”

Oliver’s project aims to determine if fenced reserves benefit bats due to reduced predation, increased food resources or improved quality and availability of roost sites. He will utilise two arid zone fenced reserves of differing ages to answer fundamental questions such as, is bat activity and diversity higher inside fenced reserves and is there a ‘halo effect’ related to reserve age? What are the benefits of fenced reserves for bats? What is the spatial and temporal use of reserves by bats? Do fenced reserves provide refugia from extreme heat under climate change? The results will inform management of desert bats and determine the value of feral free reserves for ‘microbat’ persistence.

Olivers’s field research will take place at the Wild Deserts reserve in north-west NSW and at Arid Recovery in South Australia.

The funding associated with the award will go towards specialist equipment, including an acoustic array. This will enable a better understanding of the spatial and temporal use of the reserves by bats with modern bioacoustic methods.

“I feel extremely privileged to win the Fundamental Ecology Award. Bats do not always get the attention they deserve, so I am very grateful that the ESA has shown their interest in supporting bat research,” said Oliver.

“These additional funds have made a significant contribution to the project and I’m excited to put them to good use this field season. I look forward to presenting and meeting other members of the ESA in person in Darwin in 2023.”

Sarah O’Hea Miller (University of Wollongong) and Kari Soennischen (University of Canberra) were named as runners-up.