Sophio Maglakelidze
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Georgia is widely recognised as the world’s oldest winemaking country, yet there is little local evidence on how vineyard management affects bats or the pest-control services they can provide. This project will generate the first baseline assessment of bat activity, diversity, and diet in Georgian vineyards by comparing paired organic (BIO) and conventional sites in Kakheti. The main aims are to (1) quantify how farming practices influence bat presence and foraging activity, (2) identify which agricultural pest taxa are consumed by bats, and (3) use the findings to promote bat-friendly, biodiversity-supporting viticulture through targeted outreach and capacity building.
From May to November 2026, full-spectrum acoustic detectors will be deployed in an organic and a conventional vineyard to record bat echolocation activity throughout the season. Recordings will be processed to estimate activity indices, species richness, and indicators of foraging intensity, allowing a robust comparison between management types while minimizing confounding by seasonality and nightly weather. In parallel, nocturnal moth communities will be sampled using portable LED blacklight traps at detector locations during service visits. Moths will be identified morphologically to quantify prey availability and pest pressure at each vineyard.
To assess bats’ ecosystem services, guano will be collected from nearby roosts throughout the season for metabarcoding. If roosts cannot be located, mist-netting near vineyards in August–September will allow guano collection from captured bats. Metabarcoding results will be cross-referenced with moth sampling to estimate the proportion of agricultural pest species in bat diets and test the pest-control hypothesis. Alongside ecological data, the project will collect basic management information from growers (e.g., timing/frequency of pesticide applications in the conventional vineyard) and, where available, existing records of pest damage or complaints to ensure results are relevant for decision-making beyond yield alone.
To place vineyards within the wider habitat mosaic, the project will include reference points in adjacent semi-natural habitat features (e.g., hedgerows/treelines or riparian corridors) where feasible. Community engagement will include at least two workshops with local winemakers (with additional sessions if more vineyards are interested), hands-on demonstrations of acoustic monitoring, and simple guidance materials to support future local monitoring and adoption of bat-friendly practices.