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More than 600,000 bats died in the U.S. last year because of wind turbines, a new study suggests.

Researchers said this is worrying because bats play an important role in the ecosystem as insect-eaters and pollinators.

Bats are not only killed by collisions with moving turbine blades but also by the trauma resulting from sudden changes in air pressure that occur near a fast-moving blade.

Using statistical techniques to infer the probable number of bat deaths at wind energy facilities from the number of dead bats found at 21 locations, lead researcher Mark Hayes of the University of Colorado found that more than 600,000 of the mammals likely died from wind turbines in 2012.

Hayes notes that this is a conservative estimate that that the actual figure could be 50 percent higher.

Researchers said that the estimate is in rough agreement with some previous estimates, but bigger than most. Researchers said that the data analyzed in the study also suggest that some areas of the country might experience much higher bat fatality rates at wind energy facilities than others. For instance, the Appalachian Mountains have the highest estimated fatality rates in Hayes's analysis.

Researchers said that deaths at wind energy facilities for bat populations are had to assess because there are no quality estimates of the population sizes of most North American bat species.

However, researchers note that climate change and disease, like white-nose syndrome, is already putting bat populations under stress. They say the latest findings are worrying because bat populations grow only very slowly and most species only produce one offspring a year.

The findings are published in the journal BioScience.