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Author: Debra A. Scott Publisher: ISBN: Category : Bats Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
Abstract: Urban expansion fragments natural habitats, which can increase susceptibility of wildlife to invasive species, predation, disease, and pollution. However, these habitat fragments may benefit some wildlife species. Recently, many organizations have made efforts to maintain and restore (e.g. through prescribed burning, invasive/exotic species removal, snag recruitment, drain tile disablement, and deer population control) natural areas in metropolitan areas, which led to changes in forest structure, such as reduced tree and shrub densities and decreased canopy cover. Habitat restoration may affect how species, such as bats, use forest fragments in urban environments. Bats are highly vague and are able to exploit habitat patches, particularly woodlands, in urban landscapes. In North America, bats use forests for foraging, roosting, and/or rearing young. Previous studies have shown a positive relationship between bat activity and woodlands in urban environments, and have suggested the importance of microhabitat to bat activity. I determined relationships between (1) restoration efforts and general bat activity, (2) general bat activity and microhabitat charactersitics (3) interspecific variation with woodland variables, and (4) roost selection of northern myotis (Myotis septentrionalis) and red bats (Lasiurus borealis) in woodland fragments. During the summers of 2004 and 2005, I used ultrasonic detectors to monitor both general and species-specific bat activity in 9 forest preserves that are in various stages of restoration. I identified 5,074 of 7,652 collected bat passes to species during 5,760 detector hours. Restoration variables and general bat activity were compared using linear regression and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) for model selection. Prescribed burning and invasive species removal were positively related to general bat activity. Relationships between general bat activity and vegetation variables were determined using mixed-effects linear regression models. Model fit was compared using AIC. General bat activity was positively related to small tree density (7.7-20 cm DBH) and inversely related to shrub density and clutter at 0-6 m heights. I used partial canonical correspondence analysis with site and year as covariables to determine relationships between vegetation variables and bat species. Red bats were associated with small and medium tree densities and inversely related to clutter at 0-9 m. Myotis spp. were positively associated with canopy cover, clutter at 6-9 m, and small and medium tree densities. Silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) activity was associated with more open forests. Big brown bats (Eptesicusfuscus) were not strongly associated with any measured vegetation variable. In 2005, I radio-tracked 5 northern myotis and 6 red bats to determine roost, plot, and stand characteristics that may clarify roost selection in urban environments. Northern myotis' roosts were positively associated with snags that had exfoliating bark and were located in unrestored woodlands. Red bat roosts were primarily located in unrestored woodlands and in residential lawns. These results suggest bats may respond to some forms of woodland restoration in urban landscapes. Sites that had repeated measures of restoration had greater overall bat acitivity. However, species-specific responses to vegetation and to roost selection differed and should be taken into consideration when developing management plans.
Author: Debra A. Scott Publisher: ISBN: Category : Bats Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
Abstract: Urban expansion fragments natural habitats, which can increase susceptibility of wildlife to invasive species, predation, disease, and pollution. However, these habitat fragments may benefit some wildlife species. Recently, many organizations have made efforts to maintain and restore (e.g. through prescribed burning, invasive/exotic species removal, snag recruitment, drain tile disablement, and deer population control) natural areas in metropolitan areas, which led to changes in forest structure, such as reduced tree and shrub densities and decreased canopy cover. Habitat restoration may affect how species, such as bats, use forest fragments in urban environments. Bats are highly vague and are able to exploit habitat patches, particularly woodlands, in urban landscapes. In North America, bats use forests for foraging, roosting, and/or rearing young. Previous studies have shown a positive relationship between bat activity and woodlands in urban environments, and have suggested the importance of microhabitat to bat activity. I determined relationships between (1) restoration efforts and general bat activity, (2) general bat activity and microhabitat charactersitics (3) interspecific variation with woodland variables, and (4) roost selection of northern myotis (Myotis septentrionalis) and red bats (Lasiurus borealis) in woodland fragments. During the summers of 2004 and 2005, I used ultrasonic detectors to monitor both general and species-specific bat activity in 9 forest preserves that are in various stages of restoration. I identified 5,074 of 7,652 collected bat passes to species during 5,760 detector hours. Restoration variables and general bat activity were compared using linear regression and Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) for model selection. Prescribed burning and invasive species removal were positively related to general bat activity. Relationships between general bat activity and vegetation variables were determined using mixed-effects linear regression models. Model fit was compared using AIC. General bat activity was positively related to small tree density (7.7-20 cm DBH) and inversely related to shrub density and clutter at 0-6 m heights. I used partial canonical correspondence analysis with site and year as covariables to determine relationships between vegetation variables and bat species. Red bats were associated with small and medium tree densities and inversely related to clutter at 0-9 m. Myotis spp. were positively associated with canopy cover, clutter at 6-9 m, and small and medium tree densities. Silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) activity was associated with more open forests. Big brown bats (Eptesicusfuscus) were not strongly associated with any measured vegetation variable. In 2005, I radio-tracked 5 northern myotis and 6 red bats to determine roost, plot, and stand characteristics that may clarify roost selection in urban environments. Northern myotis' roosts were positively associated with snags that had exfoliating bark and were located in unrestored woodlands. Red bat roosts were primarily located in unrestored woodlands and in residential lawns. These results suggest bats may respond to some forms of woodland restoration in urban landscapes. Sites that had repeated measures of restoration had greater overall bat acitivity. However, species-specific responses to vegetation and to roost selection differed and should be taken into consideration when developing management plans.
Author: Anne Minard Publisher: ISBN: Category : Bats Languages : en Pages : 8
Book Description
Northern Arizona is home to at least 20 species of batsor two-thirds of the bat species found in the state (Cockburn 1960, Hinman and Snow 2003). Only a couple of these species live exclusively in ponderosa pine forests while the rest inhabit a variety of ecosystem types from desert scrub to pinyon-juniper to ponderosa pine-Gambel oak and mixed conifer (Arizona Game and Fish Department 1996, Hinman and Snow 2003). Bats are an important part of the forest ecology of northern Arizona because they prey on insects such as midges, moths, beetles, flies, mosquitoes, termites, and ants. They typically roost in the cavities of live trees and snags, under loose tree bark, in tree stumps and logs, in rock crevices, or in caves. As the new era of ecologically restoring forest ecosystems in the Southwest moves from experiments to full implementation, the question arises:What effects will restoration treatments have on forest wildlife, including often forgotten or poorly understood animal groups, such as bats? Thinning, for instance, might remove snags where bats roost, and burning could inadvertently destroy or alter such roosting sites.While its true that fire will create new snags, given the present forest conditions, they will be younger, smaller-diameter snags that are more susceptible to fire, and not the 27-inch-plus-diameter snags bats most often use. In this working paper, we look at research and studies that provide some recommendations about ways to maintain bat habitat while restoring forest tree health and vitality.
Author: Christian C. Voigt Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3319252208 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 601
Book Description
This book focuses on central themes related to the conservation of bats. It details their response to land-use change and management practices, intensified urbanization and roost disturbance and loss. Increasing interactions between humans and bats as a result of hunting, disease relationships, occupation of human dwellings, and conflict over fruit crops are explored in depth. Finally, contributors highlight the roles that taxonomy, conservation networks and conservation psychology have to play in conserving this imperilled but vital taxon. With over 1300 species, bats are the second largest order of mammals, yet as the Anthropocene dawns, bat populations around the world are in decline. Greater understanding of the anthropogenic drivers of this decline and exploration of possible mitigation measures are urgently needed if we are to retain global bat diversity in the coming decades. This book brings together teams of international experts to provide a global review of current understanding and recommend directions for future research and mitigation.
Author: Anna Berthinussen Publisher: Pelagic Publishing Ltd ISBN: 1907807918 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 137
Book Description
This book brings together scientific evidence and experience relevant to the practical conservation of bats. The authors worked with an international group of bat experts and conservationists to develop a global list of interventions that could benefit bats. For each intervention, the book summarises studies captured by the Conservation Evidence project, where that intervention has been tested and its effects on bats quantified. The result is a thorough guide to what is known, or not known, about the effectiveness of bat conservation actions throughout the world. Bat Conservation is the fifth in a series of Synopses that will cover different species groups and habitats, gradually building into a comprehensive summary of evidence on the effects of conservation interventions for all biodiversity throughout the world. By making evidence accessible in this way, we hope to enable a change in the practice of conservation, so it can become more evidence-based. We also aim to highlight where there are gaps in knowledge. Evidence from all around the world is included. If there appears to be a bias towards evidence from northern European or North American temperate environments, this reflects a current bias in the published research that is available to us. Conservation interventions are grouped primarily according to the relevant direct threats, as defined in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Unified Classification of Direct Threats (www.iucnredlist.org/technical-documents/classification-schemes).
Author: Marne Avina Titchenell Publisher: ISBN: Category : Bats Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
Abstract: Forest management practices, such as harvesting, can greatly influence bat habitat relationships. Such practices can affect the microclimate and physical structure of the forest, foraging opportunities, and the availability of roost sites and prey. Research in eastern forests is needed to provide managers with the knowledge and skills to properly and effectively manage for bats and their habitat while still achieving forest management goals. One of these goals is the restoration of declining oak communities with regeneration methods, such as shelterwood harvests. This research examined bat activity responses to initial shelterwood harvests with different retention levels (50% and 70%) of the original basal area. Bats were acoustically monitored and captured by the use of mistnets in the summer of June 2006 through August 2006 in harvested and unharvested areas. Overall general activity differed (p = 0.004) among harvested and unharvested areas with the greatest amount of activity occurring within the harvested areas. There were no differences in overall bat activity between different retention levels. Red bats (Lasiurus borealis), big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus), and silver-haired bats (Lasionycteris noctivagans) were detected most in the harvested areas, and had low activity in the unharvested areas. Red bats, big brown bats, and silver-haired bats were detected equally in the two retention levels. Eastern pipistrelles (Pipistrellus subflavus) and myotis (Myotis sp.) were detected equally among both retention levels and the unharvested areas. A method was developed to quantify the amount of volume of woody plant material vertically through the forest canopy. The results of this method were compared to overall and species bat activity. Overall bat activity decreased rapidly at volumes exceeding 148.4 meters per hectare (m3/ha) in the understory (0-3 meters (m) above ground). The probably of detecting a red bat decreased by 50% at volumes exceeding 1500 m3/ha in the understory to mid-canopy (3-6 m), while big brown and silver-haired bat activity was detected most when volumes at 3-6 m in height were less than 100 m3/ha. Activity rates of Myotis species and eastern pipistrelles were not sensitive to volume of obstruction at any level. Use of additional forest characteristics such as number of snags is recommended. This research suggests that areas harvested for the purposed of restoring oak communities can provide valuable foraging ground for multiple species of bats. Bats require a diversity of landscapes, and harvesting prescriptions should allocate area of high structural density in additions to the land being harvested. This research provides a framework for the management of bat populations in southern Ohio, allowing a unique opportunity for additional rigorous research in the future.
Author: Kathryn Marie Womack Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 156
Book Description
Restoration of savanna and woodland ecosystems are high priorities for state and federal agencies in the Midwest and prescribed fire and mechanical tree thinning are the main tools used to restore these communities. Information on how bat species and their insect prey respond to restoration is needed to guide management decisions for species of conservation concern. There is a heightened urgency to collect demographic data during the summer maternity season due to white-nose syndrome (WNS) and other threats to bat populations. Our objectives were to: 1) evaluate the performance of the n-mixture model for repeated count data and the general multinomial-Poisson model for removal sampling (n-mixture model and removal model, respectively) for estimating bat abundance from simulated mist-net capture data, 2) determine the relationships between prescribed fire, vegetation structure, and site characteristics on insect abundance, and 3) determine the effect of restoration, vegetation structure, and landscape factors on bat species abundances across a gradient of savannas, woodlands, and non-managed forest in the Ozark Highlands of Missouri. We fit the n-mixture and removal models in the UNMARKED package in R, and simulated datasets that examined how both models would perform based on potential study design constraints, various probabilities of detection, and population sizes. We simulated 4 scenarios each based on 85 iterations on 1000 randomly generated datasets. We calculated relative bias (RB), mean absolute error (MAE), and mean absolute percent error (MA[percent]E) from model predictions to evaluate model performance. Relative bias, MAE, and MA[percent]E decreased as detection probability and bat abundance increased. Model fit was acceptably low when bat abundance was [greater than]70, and detection probability was [greater than] 0.5 for n-mixture models. The removal model outperformed the n-mixture model in all scenarios except when detection probability was 0.05. The removal model correctly estimated bat abundance for 50[percent] of simulated scenarios versus the n-mixture model's 3 out of 43. Utilization of the removal model using data from repeated mist-net surveys may allow resource managers and conservationists to better quantify how resource management and landscape composition affect bat species abundance and overall populations. We provide managers with evidence of the utility of the removal model to estimate bat abundances from repeated mist-net survey data while incorporating meaningful habitat, management, and landscape covariates. Furthermore, documenting changes in populations sizes during the summer maternity season will enable improved conservation practices for species management. We sampled insects at 8 plots in 2014, and 4 plots in 2015 and 2016 within 250 m of each mist-net sites. We fit generalized linear mixed effects models to evaluate a priori hypotheses on the effects of savanna woodland restoration on insect abundances. Prescribed fire did affect insect abundances at plots surrounding each mist-net site. Insect plots burned 2 or 3 times within the last ten years had higher insect abundances for some insect response groups compared to non-managed plot. Year since a plot burned also affected insect abundances, with sites burned more recently within 3 years had lower insect abundances for some insect response groups and in others – we found no relationship. We only evaluated insect Orders and did not examine specific families or species richness to understand how management affects diversity of insects. Temperature was the best predictor of insect abundances at plots for most response variables, and we found support for site aspect, and tree density by size classes. Managers should be mindful that different insect groups had different responses to prescribed fire, therefore a diversity of practices in the landscape will provide for more diverse insect prey Overall, restoration practices did not have a lasting negative effect on insect abundances, and some positive effects. We conducted mist-net surveys at 89 sites across the Ozark region of Missouri from 2014-2016, and collected demographic data on 4 bat species captured: northern longeared bat (Myotis septentrionalis), tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus), evening bat (Nycticeius humeralis), and eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis). We fit the removal model to evaluate multi-scale a priori hypotheses on the effects of restoration, landscape factors, and prey availability at sites that potentially affect either the detection or abundance of bats at sites. Top models for all four bat species highlighted the importance of evaluating multiple spatial scales in ecological studies. Overall, we found no evidence that restoration negatively affected any of the bat species investigated; although, northern long-eared bats abundance presented stronger positive relationship to percent forest and increased tree densities than to percent savanna-woodlands within 1km. Our study was the first to predict abundances from repeated count data from mist-net surveys during the summer maternity season and accounting for varying detection probabilities. We did not find support for relationships between potential insect prey and bat abundances. Eastern red bats, tricolored, and evening bat abundances were positively related to prescribed fire and negatively to tree densities or percent canopy and therefore should respond positively to savanna and woodland restoration. Northern long-eared bat had higher abundances at sites with higher tree densities of pole and saw timber and eastern red bat and northern long-eared bat abundances was positively related to sites with higher percentage of forest and savanna-woodland habitat within 1 km of mist-net sites. Evening bat abundances was the greatest at sites that had higher fire frequencies within 1 km of a mist-net site. We suggest managers consider the tradeoffs among species in these abundance relationships when planning management and that restoration of savanna and woodlands, when part of a larger management goal to create heterogeneity of forest types, will likely promote higher abundances of all four bat species.
Author: Debra A. Scott
Author: Debra A. Scott
Author: Anne Minard
Author: Shelly A. Johnson
Author: Christian C. Voigt
Author: Anna Berthinussen
Author: Marne Avina Titchenell
Author: Tracy C. Bazelman
Author: 
Author: Kathryn Marie Womack
Author: