Most Americans tend to think about bats only around Halloween, but the U.S. economy benefits from these furry flying mammals every day.
Bats pollinate plants, including many important food crops, when they stop by flowers to drink nectar. Their guano is mined from caves for fertilizer. And they eat a lot of bugs — the kinds that bother people (think mosquitoes) and others that destroy crops that humans depend on for food.
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Agricultural and Resource Economics Dale Manning and his co-researchers, Anya Nakhmurina and Eli Fenichel of Yale University, say that when bats disappear, farms become less productive, and that has broad implications for the agricultural economy, human health, rural governments and even financial markets. Read more at The Conversation.
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