Due to increasing threats facing bats, long-term monitoring protocols are needed to inform conservation strategies. Effective monitoring should be easily repeatable while capturing spatio-temporal variation. Mobile acoustic driving transect surveys ('mobile transects') have been touted as a robust, cost-effective method to monitor bats; however, it is not clear how well mobile transects represent dynamic bat communities, especially when used as the sole survey approach. To assist biologists who must select a single survey method due to resource limitations, we assessed the effectiveness of three acoustic survey methods at detecting species richness in a vast protected area (Everglades National Park): (1) mobile transects, (2) stationary surveys that were strategically located by sources of open water and (3) stationary surveys that were replicated spatially across the landscape. We found that mobile transects underrepresented bat species richness compared to stationary surveys across all major vegetation communities and in two distinct seasons (dry/cool and wet/warm). Most critically, mobile transects failed to detect three rare bat species, one of which is federally endangered.
Spatially replicated stationary surveys did not estimate higher species richness than strategically located stationary surveys, but increased the rate at which species were detected in one vegetation community. The survey strategy that detected maximum species richness and the highest mean nightly species richness with minimal effort was a strategically located stationary detector in each of two major vegetation communities during the wet/warm season. Due to increasing threats facing bats, long-term monitoring protocols are needed to inform conservation strategies. Effective monitoring should be easily repeatable while capturing spatio-temporal variation. Mobile acoustic driving transect surveys (‘mobile transects’) have been touted as a robust, cost-effective method to monitor bats; however, it is not clear how well mobile transects represent dynamic bat communities, especially when used as the sole survey approach.
To assist biologists who must select a single survey method due to resource limitations, we assessed the effectiveness of three acoustic survey methods at detecting species richness in a vast protected area (Everglades National Park): (1) mobile transects, (2) stationary surveys that were strategically located by sources of open water and (3) stationary surveys that were replicated spatially across the landscape. We found that mobile transects underrepresented bat species richness compared to stationary surveys across all major vegetation communities and in two distinct seasons (dry/cool and wet/warm). Most critically, mobile transects failed to detect three rare bat species, one of which is federally endangered. Redgate Sql Prompt Keygen Generator here. Spatially replicated stationary surveys did not estimate higher species richness than strategically located stationary surveys, but increased the rate at which species were detected in one vegetation community.
The survey strategy that detected maximum species richness and the highest mean nightly species richness with minimal effort was a strategically located stationary detector in each of two major vegetation communities during the wet/warm season. Introduction Effective methods to survey wildlife populations are critical to document changes in biodiversity and develop appropriate management actions.
These surveys must be easily repeatable over time while still capturing the inherent variation in a population or community. Rachmaninoff Vocalize Pdf - Download Free Apps there. However, surveys can be logistically complicated and costly, particularly in large or remote areas that are difficult to access ().
Bats (Order Chiroptera) are a taxonomic group that are challenging to survey due to their elusive nocturnal behavior, and ability to fly over vast landscapes. Bats provide important pollination, seed dispersal and pest suppression services (), yet the long-term provisioning of these services is uncertain due to sharp declines of bats worldwide from habitat loss, emerging pathogens and wind energy development (;; ). Long-term monitoring protocols need to be developed to document bat population trends and inform conservation strategies (). Techniques to acoustically detect and identify bats have improved over the past several decades (; ), allowing documentation of species distributions, habitat preferences, activity patterns, and presence of endangered species (e.g.,;;; ). However, it is still not clear how best to use acoustic surveys to monitor bat communities (). Specifically, we do not know the temporal and spatial sampling effort necessary to represent the heterogeneity in bat activity and species composition across landscapes (; ). Nightly variation in bat activity can result in misrepresentation of the species assemblage in a site if not sufficiently sampled temporally (;;; ).