Within‐season changes in habitat use of forest‐dwelling boreal bats (original) (raw)
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Site occupancy of foraging bats on landscapes of managed pine forest
Forest Ecology and Management, 2015
The ability to fully evaluate potential relationships between forest management and bats is limited without information from relevant spatial scales. Further, knowledge of bat ecology in intensively managed forests is fairly limited even though these forests are a substantial portion of the forested landscape in the southeastern U.S. Therefore, we used occupancy models to examine influence of small-scale vegetation characteristics and large-scale spatial features on foraging patterns of bats within 6 managed-pine (Pinus spp.) forest landscapes in the southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain. We conducted repeated acoustic surveys to determine species presence/non-detection and evaluated a priori models relating detection probability and occupancy to site-and landscape-level metrics for 6 species/genera. Detection of big brown (Eptesicus fuscus) and eastern red (Lasiurus borealis)/Seminole (L. seminolus) bats (eastern red and Seminole bats combined) decreased with increasing basal area, and detection of big brown and Brazilian free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis) increased over the summer sampling period. Relationships between occupancy and habitat metrics were species-specific but consistent with previous studies. Occupancy for most bat species was lower at sampling sites with higher vegetation clutter and higher basal area. In contrast to most previous studies, occupancy of all bat species investigated was unrelated to or negatively influenced by distance to water. Although site-and landscape-level features influenced occupancy, our results indicate that site-specific features (vegetation clutter and basal area) influenced most species. Therefore, stand-level management activities that decrease vegetation structure, such as thinning intermediate-aged stands and/or controlling midstory vegetation (e.g., fire or herbicide applications), likely will maintain or increase suitability of managed pine forest stands and landscapes for many bat species in the southeastern Coastal Plain. The forest mosaics that we sampled, consisting primarily of managed pine stands intermingled with non-production habitat types, supported a large proportion of the bat community associated with forests of the Coastal Plain which suggests the compatibility of timber production and bat conservation objectives.
Use of forest strata by bats in temperate forests
Journal of Zoology, 2012
Concurrent recordings of bat calls at the ground and canopy levels were compared to analyse the vertical stratification of habitat use in a broad-leaved deciduous forest in central Europe. The recording effort was 48 nights, by sampling 16 sites three times in 2010. Overall, 2170 call sequences were recorded; 40% of them at the canopy level. Sixteen bat species were identified, 13 of which occurred at ground level and 14 in the canopy. By fitting generalized linear mixed models for seven species and all calls sequences combined, the effects of stratum, time period, ambient temperature and forest structure on bat-calling activity were assessed. Four species preferred the ground level (Barbastella barbastellus, Eptesicus serotinus, Myotis daubentonii, Pipistrellus pygmaeus). M. bechsteinii was the only species which had a significant preference for the canopy level in the pregnancy, lactation and post-lactation period, whereas two further species (M. alcathoe, P. pipistrellus) showed a significant canopy preference in at least one period. Therefore, canopy sampling should be undertaken when aiming at monitoring such species for conservation purposes. Populations of certain target species will be underestimated by ground recordings alone.
Forest Structure and Composition Affect Bats in a Tropical Evergreen Broadleaf Forest
Forests
The lack of knowledge regarding many aerial insectivorous bats and their relationships with forest characteristics limits conservation decision-making for tropical rainforests and for this important bat group. Therefore, our objective was to understand the effects of forest structure and composition on these bats in the Neotropical evergreen broadleaf forest of Belize, Central America. We conducted bat monitoring and quantified 51 forest characteristics at 24 locations in the Chiquibul Forest Reserve (CFR) from May-July 2014. Simple linear and backward stepwise multiple regression analyses were used to examine relationships between bat richness and activity and forest characteristics. Bat genus richness and total activity were directly related to overstory canopy depth and inversely related to ≤4 structural characteristics. Lasiurus, Myotis, Promops, and Pteronotus spp. were affected by ≤7 forest characteristics; the responses were explained by preferences for less-cluttered, open space for flying and foraging and species-specific food and cover requirements. However, bat richness and activity were often unaffected by forest structure and composition in the CFR, suggesting that at this taxonomic level, bats may not be very sensitive to variation in forest characteristics, may not be very useful indicators of alteration, and may have some tolerance for disturbance and change.
Forest Ecology and Management, 2021
Site-occupancy of bats in forested landscapes has been linked to vegetation clutter, but clutter alone may not sufficiently explain observed site-occupancy. Abundance of prey likely has a strong influence on habitat use in forest landscapes as well. Therefore, we simultaneously examined influence of insect abundance and vegetation characteristics on bat site-occupancy across 3 pine (Pinus spp.)-dominated landscapes within the southeastern U. S. Coastal Plain. We conducted acoustic surveys and used Akaike's Information Criterion to evaluate plausibility of occupancy and detection models that incorporated vegetation-and insect-related factors. Results indicate that bat site-occupancy was better explained by a combination of vegetation characteristics and insect abundance than either separately, and vegetation structure has a stronger influence than prey abundance. Additionally, our data generally suggest insect taxon is more influential in predicting occupancy than insect size. Management activities on pine-dominated landscapes that simultaneously reduce vegetation clutter and increase insect abundance are likely to benefit resident bat species.
Habitat Associations of Overwintering Bats in Managed Pine Forest Landscapes
Forests
Research Highlights: Seasonal variation in environmental conditions coinciding with reproductive and energetic demands might result in seasonal differences in species-specific habitat use. We studied a winter assemblage of insectivorous bats and found that species acted as habitat generalists during winter compared to expectations based on the summer active season. Background and Objectives: In temperate regions, seasonal fluctuations in resource availability might restructure local bat assemblages. Initially perceived to only hibernate or migrate to avoid adverse winter conditions, temperate insectivorous bats appear to also employ intermediate overwintering strategies, as a growing body of literature suggests that winter activity is quite prevalent and even common in some lower latitude areas. However, to date, most studies have exclusively assessed habitat associations during summer. Because habitat use during summer is strongly influenced by reproduction, we hypothesized that ha...
PloS one, 2015
Anthropogenic changes in land use threaten biodiversity and ecosystem functioning by the conversion of natural habitat into agricultural mosaic landscapes, often with drastic consequences for the associated fauna. The first step in the development of efficient conservation plans is to understand movement of animals through complex habitat mosaics. Therefore, we studied ranging behavior and habitat use in Dermanura watsoni (Phyllostomidae), a frugivorous bat species that is a valuable seed disperser in degraded ecosystems. Radio-tracking of sixteen bats showed that the animals strongly rely on natural forest. Day roosts were exclusively located within mature forest fragments. Selection ratios showed that the bats foraged selectively within the available habitat and positively selected natural forest. However, larger daily ranges were associated with higher use of degraded habitats. Home range geometry and composition of focal foraging areas indicated that wider ranging bats performed...
Deciduous trees increase bat diversity at stand and landscape scales in mosaic pine plantations
Landscape Ecology, 2015
Context In heterogeneous landscapes, habitat complementation is a key process underlying the distribution of mobile species able to exploit non-substitutable resources over large home ranges. For instance, insectivorous bats need to forage in a diversity of habitat patches offering varied compositions and structures within forest landscape mosaics to fulfill their life cycle requirements.