In recent years researchers have discovered that bats play key roles in many ecosystems as insect predators, seed dispersers, and pollinators. Bats also display astonishing ecological and evolutionary diversity and serve as important models for studies of a wide variety of topics, including food webs, biogeography, and emerging diseases. World-renowned bat scholars present an up-to-date, comprehensive, and authoritative review of this research. Covers the life history and behavioural ecology of bats, from migration to sperm competition and natural selection; functional ecology, including ecomorphology, feeding, and physiology; macroecological issues such as the evolution of ecological diversity, range size, and infectious diseases (including rabies); and conservation challenges facing these fascinating flying mammals.

Contributors: John D. Altringham, Robert M. R. Barclay, Tenley M. Conway, Elizabeth R. Dumont, Peggy Eby, Abigail C. Entwistle, Theodore H. Fleming, Patricia W. Freeman, Lawrence D. Harder, Gareth Jones, Linda F. Lumsden, Gary F. McCracken, Sharon L. Messenger, Bruce D. Patterson, Paul A. Racey, Jens Rydell, Charles E. Rupprecht, Nancy B. Simmons, Jean S. Smith, John R. Speakman, Richard D. Stevens, Elizabeth F. Stockwell, Sharon M. Swartz, Donald W. Thomas, Otto von Helversen, Gerald S. Wilkinson, Michael R. Willig, York Winter

"Kunz and Fenton have enlisted an outstanding group of bat biologists, who, without exception, have done a superb job summarizing and synthesizing the material in their respective chapters [...] This is a very valuable book."

– John O. Whitaker Jr., Ecology

Thomas H. Kunz is professor of biology and director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University. He is coeditor, most recently, of Bat Biology and Conservation.

M. Brock Fenton is professor of biology at the University of Western Ontario. He is the author of, among other books, The Bat: Wings in the Night Sky and Bats, revised edition.