Within LifeWatch we monitor the presence of bats along the Belgian coast on a long term basis by passively listening to their echolocation calls. Acoustic monitoring is a powerful technique for learning about the ecology of bats. Bat recorders provide continuous registration of bat activity by recording the echolocation calls of passing bats. Since the bat calls are highly reliable taxonomic features, the acquired data can be used to estimate diversity and relative abundance of the occurring species. The generated data provides a basis for ecological and behavioral research of the bat species occurring in our coastal and marine areas. 

Secondly, the ecological knowledge on migrating bats is limited and specifically their routes along the coast and over the sea are not yet fully understood. Since bats migrate across Europe, it is important to collaborate in a pan-European network and share a network of antenna stations to record passing tagged bats. This is done in the Motus Wildlife Tracking network, which is based on radio telemetry. This is a technique to track the movements of small birds and bats. A small, encoded radio transmitter is attached to these animals, broadcasting a unique coded signal at 150.1 MHz. The tag can then be detected by antenna stations continuously scanning for this signal. LifeWatch Belgium has installed stations along the Belgian coast as an addition to the Motus Wildlife Tracking System. This international network, coordinated in Canada, hosts the tag and station database and thus facilitates collaborative research in animal movements.  

Acoustic network