Ever played a game of telephone? Indubitably, the more complex the starting message, the greater it is warped in the end. However, what if, at every point, the next person was able to review the original message? To add another condition, what if there were only two people playing: the beginning and the end? Scientific papers are often too complex and dense for a general audience, so it is up to another middleman, journalists, to convey the messages of the papers, often resulting in distortion of the researchers’ findings. Let us examine an article by Mark Kinver that summarizes a study conducted by Daniel Lewanzik and Christian C. Voigt about bats, light pollution, and seed dispersal.
The original study begins by highlighting that the impact of artificial light at night on animals is worth examining because many nocturnal animals are sensitive to the natural lighting of the night already, and the presence of artificial light could be an all-night experience for these animals. Dr. Lewanzik and Dr. Voigt chose to study one of the most famous nocturnal animals: the bat (famous enough to warrant its own superhero). An aside explains that fruit-eating bats are highly critical to seed dispersal in tropical rainforests, which, as many know, are experiencing a decline. In particular, Sowell’s short-tailed bats (Carollia sowelli) were studied due to their important role as the main disperser of pepper seeds, making them key players in the regeneration of forests.
Carollia brevicauda, a relative of Sowell's short-tailed bats. Photograph by Diego Lizcano (CC BY 2.0).