Modern building structures are a landscape‐level driver of bat–human exposure risk in Kenya

Abstract

Identifying the locations and drivers of high‐risk interfaces between humans and wildlife is crucial for managing zoonotic disease risk. We suggest that continent‐wide improvements to residential housing in Africa are inadvertently creating artificial roosting habitat for synanthropic free‐tailed bats (family Molossidae), and that improved buildings are a rapidly accelerating exposure interface that needs urgent research attention and investment. Along a residential gradient in rural southern Kenya, we mapped building use by free‐tailed bats in 1109 buildings. We show that bats often roost in human‐occupied buildings, with almost one‐in‐ten buildings exhibiting evidence of bat occupation (9.2%) and one‐in‐13 found to contain active bat roosts (7.6%). We identified modern‐build styles and triangular roofing as building‐level predictors of bat occupation, and the proportion of modern buildings as a landscape‐level predictor of bat occupancy. Humane preemptive exclusion of bats (by sealing bat entry points to buildings) and restoration of natural roosting habitats should be prioritized as One Health land‐use planning strategies in rural Africa.