PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 19: Bat habitat use in eastern North American temperate forests: Site, stand, and landscape effects
Organizer(s): RT Brooks and M Ford
Tuesday, August 9, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 510a, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Stand and landscape factors associated with habitat use by bats in South Carolina.

Loeb, Susan^*,1, O'Keefe, Joy², ¹ USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Clemson, SC, USA² Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA

ABSTRACT- Most studies of bat habitat associations have focused on stand characteristics such as forest type and age. However, these attributes may work in conjunction with spatial and landscape characteristics in determining habitat use and resource partitioning among species. We used AnabatII bat detectors to measure overall bat activity and the presence of individual species in 96 stands of 3 habitat types (hardwood, pine, and mixed pine-hardwood) and 4 age classes (early, sapling/pole, mid-successional, and late-successional) on the Andrew Pickens Ranger District of the Sumter National Forest in upstate South Carolina. We used ArcMap 9 to measure spatial characteristics of our sampling points (e.g., physiographic region, distance to streams, distance to roads, distance to mines, slope) and compared stand and landscape characteristics of used and non-used stands. High quality bat calls were identified to species using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods and overall activity was measured as the number of bat passes regardless of species or call quality. Total activity did not vary with habitat type but tended to be highest in early aged stands. Landscape factors affecting bat activity were physiographic region and stand size; activity was greatest in the Piedmont and in larger stands. An examination of stand and landscape factors associated with habitat use by the four most common species (big brown bats, red bats, northern myotis, and pipistrelles) suggests that species-specific patterns of habitat use varied considerably, and that bats partitioned the forest based on both stand and landscape characteristics. For example, both big brown bats and pipistrelles preferred early aged stands, but pipistrelles tended to use stands closer to streams while big brown bats used stands farther from streams and closer to roads. Both pipistrelles and northern myotis preferred stands in the Piedmont, but northern myotis showed a strong preference for late-successional stands while pipistrelles used all age class stands. Northern myotis also used stands that were closer to larger streams. Our data suggest that the distribution of forest habitats with respect to landscape features, as well as their structure and composition, must be considered in understanding habitat associations and community dynamics of bats.

Key words: bats, habitat, landscape