Urban habitats offer buffered environmental conditions for city-dwelling bats.

Abstract

Urbanization reshapes local climates, potentially altering how animals respond to environmental variation. We used continuous acoustic monitoring at 12 urban and 15 rural sites across a steep aridity gradient in Israel, recording bats for 2.5 months from midsummer to autumn. Across 1,151 site-nights, we detected 95,473 encounters from 11 species. Rural bat activity was strongly associated with temperature, humidity, wind speed, and illumination, whereas urban activity was less sensitive to these environmental factors and to building height and density. Rural specialists avoided cities and were active within relatively narrow environmental ranges, while generalists occurred in both habitats and used broader activity conditions in cities. Urban bat activity also remained comparatively stable as rural activity declined seasonally. These findings show that cities may buffer environmental variability, allowing bats to forage across broader weather and potentially remain active later in the year.