BatPine - Promoting the resilience of ecosystem services to climate change: a case study with pine plantations, pine processionary moth and bats

Coniferous forests make a significant contribution to Portuguese GNP, yet they have been suffering severe losses since the late 1990s due to the plague of the invasive pine processionary moth. In here, we present a project that aims to promote pest suppression services by bats at pine stands. Using an innovative approach, we propose to combine metabarcoding data, ecological modelling and bat food-web analyses to produce maps and guidelines that may improve the resilience of these services considering predicted climate change. Our results have the potential to produce high profile scientific research while making a contribution for the sustainability of the exploitation of pine stands. The produced maps and guidelines will be provided to the forestry industry, thus transferring skills from cutting edge research to tackle current societal challenges.