Study Finds Flying Foxes Deliver Major Economic Benefits in Australia

Economic value quantified

Flying foxes in Australia may be far more valuable than they have long been perceived to be. New research suggests the large fruit bats contribute hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the country’s economy by helping forests regenerate.

The grey-headed flying fox, one of the world’s largest bats, migrates along Australia’s eastern coastal regions and spreads seeds over long distances. Although bats have often been feared and, in Australia, flying foxes were once treated as pests and even killed with napalm, scientists say the animals play a major ecological and economic role.

A study published Tuesday in *Scientific Reports* quantified the benefits flying foxes provide to Australia’s timber industry. Using data from more than 1,200 roosting sites collected by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, researchers estimated that the bats were responsible for the creation of more than 91 million trees, most of them eucalypts. They calculated the value of that contribution at roughly $195 million to $673 million a year.

How bats support forests

The study is the third known worldwide, and the first in Australia, to measure the economic benefits provided by bats. Other research has found bats help protect cotton and corn crops in Texas and support the tequila industry in Mexico.

In Australia, flying foxes benefit ecosystems in two main ways: they pollinate trees while feeding and roosting, and they disperse seeds as they travel. Researchers said many Australian tree species have become dependent on them through a long co-evolutionary relationship between certain bat species and plants.

One of the study’s authors, Alexander Braczkowski, described flying foxes as “mega-dispersers,” noting that compared with birds and bees, they travel much farther on average and can carry proportionally larger seeds. The researchers called this broad ecological influence “the bat ripple effect,” reflecting the way flying foxes connect multiple ecosystems as they move hundreds of miles in just a few days.

Growing conservation concern

Experts said that mobility is especially important as Australia’s landscapes are increasingly shaped by wildfires and human activity. Justin Welbergen, an animal ecology professor at Western Sydney University who was not involved in the study, said flying foxes help hold fragmented forest landscapes together and preserve the genetic integrity of Australia’s forests, particularly as they recover from more frequent fires.

Even so, flying foxes remain vulnerable to habitat loss, fire and extreme heat. Welbergen said a single hot afternoon can kill tens of thousands of animals across a region.

Researchers and other experts said the animals deserve conservation attention comparable to that given to bees. Without flying foxes, one study author, Alfredo Ortega González of the University of Sydney, said the damage would unfold gradually, but could eventually leave some tree species unable to spread their seeds or regenerate across the landscape.

As Welbergen put it, bats may be widely feared, but even “the most despised animals in the world have roles to play.”