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PEARLPaleoecologicalEnvironmentalAssessment andResearchLaboratory |
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PEARLPaleoecologicalEnvironmentalAssessment andResearchLaboratory |
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Bat Caves Study
Bats, like any roosting animal, can act as biovectors and leave important paleoecological records in deposits at roost sites. In some rare, undisturbed deposits from tropical caves, the record can go back thousands of years. Information on past environments can be reconstructed from these stratigraphic deposits by using pollen grains, isotopes, DNA, metals like mercury and lead, and other proxy indicators. Our study focuses on deposits from two caves in Jamaica that were spared human exploitation for fertilizer due to their extremely difficult access. The discovery of the cave deposits and the original inspiration for this project came from R. Stefan Stewart of the Jamaican Caves Organization, who also greatly facilitated the fieldwork and data interpretation. This project is one of many in collaboration with Jules Blais, Lauren Gallant and other colleagues at the University of Ottawa. Additional collaborators include Brock Fenton (Western University), Elizabeth Clare (Queen Mary University of London), and Wieslaw Bogdanowicz (Museum & Institute of Zoology PAS Wilcza, Warszawa, Poland).
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| Macrotus bat. | Field Crew 2014 | Trench cut into guano deposit of approximately 4200 years old. | Column and sampling tray. |
Publications from this project:
Gallant, Lauren R; Fenton, M. Brock; Grooms, Christopher; Bogdanowicz, Wieslaw, Stewart, R. Stefan;
Clare, Elizabeth L, Smol, John P; and Blais, Jules M. 2021.
A 4,300-year history of Dietary Changes in a Bat Roost Determined From a Tropical Guano Deposit. Biogeosciences 126(4).
Gallant, L.R., Grooms, C., Kimpe, L.E., Smol, J.P., Bogdanowicz, W., Stewart, R.S., Clare, E.L., Fenton, M.B., and Blais, J.M. 2020. A bat guano deposit in Jamaica recorded agricultural changes and metal exposure over the last >4,300-years. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 538: 109470
Ancient Bat Guano Reveals Thousands of Years of Human Impact on the Environment. Smithsonian Magazine. JANUARY 23, 2020.
W. Bogdanowicz, Elżbieta Worobiec, C. Grooms, L.E. Kimpe, J.P. Smol, R.S. Stewart, E. Suchecka, J.J. Pomorski, J.M. Blais, E.L. Clare, M.B. Fenton, Pollen assemblage and environmental DNA changes: A 4300-year-old bat guano deposit from Jamaica, Quaternary International, Volume 558, 2020, Pages 47-58, ISSN 1040-6182, doi.org 10.1016 j.quaint.2020.09.003.
Media covering this project:
NSS News: A Cautionary Note on the Value of Guano Deposits in Caves
University of Ottawa:
University of Ottawa in French
Poop Core records the diet and environment of bats for 4,300 years - Jules Blais & Lauren Gallant
This week in science – Vancouver radio – April 18, 2021:
Link to related studies done at PEARL
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