Amber Williams

Project: Rodrigues Island but my project is a desk-based data analysis

Master of Philosophy studying population dynamics of the Rodrigues fruit bat

I have always had an admiration for bats. I have spent many summer days as a Chester Zoo junior member in the fruit bat forest asking the keepers questions and being mesmerized by the agility of the Sabe’s fruit bats and the elusiveness of the Rodrigues fruit bats. As a result, I became fascinated with our native insectivorous bats and would focus on them in my studies. Recently, I was given the opportunity to assist with this current research project conducting statistical analysis on long-term population data of the Rodrigues fruit bats- full circle!

Fruit bats are incredibly important ecosystem service providers. They are responsible for the provisioning of pollination and seed dispersal across long distances, in addition to providing nutrient-rich guano to fertilize plants. These services make them vital to ecosystem functioning, and this becomes even more important in island ecosystems. The island of Rodrigues is a very small island in the Indian Ocean, upon which the endemic Rodrigues fruit bat has been closely monitored for decades by the Mauritius Wildlife Foundation. This data is the subject of my research project. I am investigating the population dynamics of this species using statistical models to compare the influence of an array of climatic and temporal variables on the population numbers. This analysis will provide insight into the current status of the population and the trends in the population over time as well as potentially enabling the methodology or data logging to be refined.

Supervisors:

Dr Achaz von Hardenberg (University of Chester)

Dr Lottie Hosie (University of Chester)

Dr Leah Williams (Chester Zoo)

Dr Claire Raisin (Chester Zoo)