TY - JOUR
TI - Interspecific effects of forest fragmentation on bats
AU - Segers, J
AU - Broders, H
T2 - Canadian Journal of Zoology
AB - Wind-farm development may be an important contributor to forest fragmentation, but how such developments impact bats is poorly understood. We hypothesized that bat activity at a wind farm would be explained, at least in part, by attraction and avoidance behaviours caused by deforestation. We tested predictions of this hypothesis via a landscape-level acoustic, capture, and radiotelemetry survey of little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus (Le Conte, 1831)) and northern long-eared myotis (Myotis septentrionalis (Trouessart, 1897)). Acoustic and capture data indicated no significant difference in magnitude of activity between the fragmented wind farm and the less-fragmented surrounding areas. However, only 2 of 19 radio-tracked bats were ever located inside the wind farm despite being captured adjacent to it. Bat locations were compared against randomly generated locations within the same area in a logistic regression framework to rank landscape variables in order of association with bats. A multicriteria evaluation of forest metrics showed that, over a 3-year period, there was an increase of suitable habitat inside the wind farm for M. lucifugus and a decrease for M. septentrionalis. These results support the contention that, at this level of disturbance, M. lucifugus may use the cleared areas, while M. septentrionalis is negatively impacted by increased deforestation caused by wind-farm development. 
DA - 2014/08//
PY - 2014
VL - 92
IS - 8
SP - 665
EP - 673
UR - https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjz-2014-0040
DO - 10.1139/cjz-2014-0040
LA - English
KW - Wind Energy
KW - Land-Based Wind
KW - Attraction
KW - Avoidance
KW - Habitat Change
KW - Bats
ER -