Wind turbines are causing unprecedented numbers of bat fatalities. Many fatalities involve tree-roosting bats, but reasons for this higher susceptibility remain unknown. To better understand behaviors associated with risk, we monitored bats at three experimentally manipulated wind turbines in Indiana, United States, from July 29 to October 1, 2012, using thermal cameras and other methods. We observed bats on 993 occasions and saw many behaviors, including close approaches, flight loops and dives, hovering, and chases. Most bats altered course toward turbines during observation. Based on these new observations, we tested the hypotheses that wind speed and blade rotation speed influenced the way that bats interacted with turbines. We found that bats were detected more frequently at lower wind speeds and typically approached turbines on the leeward (downwind) side. The proportion of leeward approaches increased with wind speed when blades were prevented from turning, yet decreased when blades could turn. Bats were observed more frequently at turbines on moonlit nights. Taken together, these observations suggest that bats may orient toward turbines by sensing air currents and using vision, and that air turbulence caused by fastmoving blades creates conditions that are less attractive to bats passing in close proximity. Tree bats may respond to streams of air flowing downwind from trees at night while searching for roosts, conspecifics, and nocturnal insect prey that could accumulate in such flows. Fatalities of tree bats at turbines may be the consequence of behaviors that evolved to provide selective advantages when elicited by tall trees, but are now maladaptive when elicited by wind turbines. energy development | sensory perception | video surveillance | wildlife | wind energy B ats are long-lived mammals with low reproductive potential and require high adult survivorship to maintain populations (1, 2). The recent phenomenon of widespread fatalities of bats at utility scale wind turbines represents a new hazard with the potential to detrimentally affect entire populations (3, 4). Bat fatalities have been found at wind turbines on several continents (3-6), with hypothesized estimates of fatalities in some regions ranging into the tens to hundreds of thousands of bats per year (4, 6). Before recent observations of dead bats beneath wind turbines, fatal collisions of bats with tall structures had been rarely recorded (7). Most fatalities reported from turbines in the United States, Canada, and Europe are of species that evolved to roost primarily in trees during much of the year ("tree bats"), some of which migrate long distances in spring and late summer to autumn (8). In North America, tree bats compose more than three-quarters of the reported bat fatalities found at wind-energy sites (6, 9), although there is a paucity of information from the southwestern United States and Mexico. Similar patterns occur in Europe (4). Another prominent pattern in bat fatality data from northern temperate zones is that most fatali...
Abstract. Internal seiches play a significant role in a broad range of physical, chemical, and biological processes in lakes. A derailed assessmere of the impact of seiching requires an understanding of seiche structure, which is determined by bathymetry and stratification. In this study, internal seiche solutions are evaluated for arbitrary bathymetry and continuous stratification using a two-dimensional numerical model. Formulated in terms of a stream function, the model produces a finite set of linear internal wave eigenmodes and allows the computation of the complete velocity field (over a grid) associated with each seiche mode. Several idealized configurations of continuous stratification and variable bathymetry are used to explore the effect of nonuniform systems on internal wave structure. In particular, we focus on bed velocity distribution and the resulting potential impact on scalar fluxes, sediment transport, and internal wave damping. Model results are also compared to thermistor chain data collected in the Upper Mystic Lake (UML, Winchester, Massachusetts). Using an idealized description of the UML bathymetry and density profiles which emulate the seasonal variation of stratification in the lake, the evolution of bed velocities during the autumnal breakdown in stratification is assessed, providing insight into the fate of the contaminants entering the lake.
Extensive configuration-interaction calculations with double-zeta plus polarization and near triple-zeta plus polarization basis sets are used to analyze the Jahn–Teller (JT) effect in the methane radical cation. Energy component analysis shows that the Jahn–Teller effect leads to a decrease in the expectation value of the electron-nuclear attraction energy, an increase in the expectation value of the interelectronic repulsion energy, and an increase in the internuclear repulsion energy. These observations are consistent with a contraction of the electron cloud. The dominant factor in the −0.0550 hartree Jahn–Teller distortion (Td→C2v) in CH+4 is the −0.5262 hartree change in the electron–nuclear attraction energy. The differences in all energy components are large in relation to the JT distortion. Interelectronic repulsion plays a dominant role in determining the relative energies of the possible JT distorted structures, but electron correlation effects are relatively unimportant.
Configuration interaction calculations have been carried out for low-lying singlet and triplet states of ('•3 +), BH(UII), (1 11 ,3 "), and FH(UII), with the aim of evaluating singlet-triplet energy component differences. These calculations represent the first systematic study of the quantum mechanical interpretation of Hund's rule in a series of molecules. While early molecular work on Hund's rule suggested that the electron-nuclear attraction may always be deeper in the triplet than in the singlet, exceptions are found in the present work. Also, in certain cases, where configuration mixing and molecular charge separation play a key role, the singlet electron-electron repulsion exceeds that of the triplet. It is also observed that changes in electron-electron repulsion tend to be in the same direction as changes in kinetic energy, whereas changes in electron-nuclear attraction are of the opposite sign, for a given geometry.
Understanding natural behaviours is essential to determining how animals deal with new threats (e.g. emerging diseases). However, natural behaviours of animals with cryptic lifestyles, like hibernating bats, are often poorly characterized. White‐nose syndrome (WNS) is an unprecedented disease threatening multiple species of hibernating bats, and pathogen‐induced changes to host behaviour may contribute to mortality. To better understand the behaviours of hibernating bats and how they might relate to WNS, we developed new ways of studying hibernation across entire seasons. We used thermal‐imaging video surveillance cameras to observe little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) and Indiana bats (M. sodalis) in two caves over multiple winters. We developed new, sharable software to test for autocorrelation and periodicity of arousal signals in recorded video. We processed 740 days (17,760 hr) of video at a rate of >1,000 hr of video imagery in less than 1 hr using a desktop computer with sufficient resolution to detect increases in arousals during midwinter in both species and clear signals of daily arousal periodicity in infected M. sodalis. Our unexpected finding of periodic synchronous group arousals in hibernating bats demonstrate the potential for video methods and suggest some bats may have innate behavioural strategies for coping with WNS. Surveillance video and accessible analysis software make it now practical to investigate long‐term behaviours of hibernating bats and other hard‐to‐study animals.
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