Urbanization is a complex and dynamic socio-economic process that results in altered landscapes as well as demographic and social structures. India is among the most populous of countries and is rapidly urbanizing. Urban biodiversity provides a wide array of ecosystem services. Urban development, therefore, needs to be backed by knowledge of the complex processes involved in urbanization and the consequences of human activities that are altering the structure and functioning of ecosystems. Bats are one of the many organisms that persist in an urbanized landscape and serve important ecological functions, despite which, they are often misunderstood by people and are subjected to negative perceptions.

This study is located in Bengaluru city in Karnataka and aims to provide insights into how insectivorous bat assemblages change in different levels of urbanization and how people in the city perceive bats. Urbanization was measured as the percentage of built-up area and was defined at two scales, i.e., 4 km and 2 km. I recorded acoustic activity of insectivorous bats at sites across Bengaluru city. The findings suggest that responses of insectivorous bats to urbanization are species-specific. The differences in detections of some species were significantly higher in the lower levels of urbanization while there were no significant differences in some species. The diversity of the insectivorous bat community measured using the Shannon’s Diversity Index values was only marginally different across levels of urbanization, but they were not statistically significant at the 4 km scale. However, at the 2 km scale, diversity was significantly higher in the level of urbanization where built-up area measured 20-40 percent.

People’s attitudes towards bats were measured using a questionnaire that scored attitudes on a scale from negative to positive. The findings suggest that attitudes towards bats do not differ in different levels of urbanization, but significant differences were found between men and women, with men showing more positive attitudes towards bats.