The importance of mature forest as bat roosting habitat within a production landscape

•We used radio telemetry to determine roosting preferences of two bat species.•Both species preferentially roosted in large, mature trees.•Not one individual was tracked to a roost in restored forest.•Remnant forest is imperative to conserve bat populations in production landscapes. Conserving biodi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Forest ecology and management 2015-11, Vol.356, p.112-123
Main Authors: Burgar, Joanna M., Craig, Michael D., Stokes, Vicki L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus marginata
Forest restoration
Forests
Habitats
Landscapes
Microhabitats
Mining
Nyctophilus
Nyctophilus gouldi
Populations
Regulus
Restoration
Tree hollows
Trees
Vespadelus regulus
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Summary:•We used radio telemetry to determine roosting preferences of two bat species.•Both species preferentially roosted in large, mature trees.•Not one individual was tracked to a roost in restored forest.•Remnant forest is imperative to conserve bat populations in production landscapes. Conserving biodiversity in production forest landscapes with on-going resource extraction, such as mining and logging, is challenging. Habitat restoration is a strategy that is increasingly used to ameliorate impacts to biodiversity in such landscapes. However, restored forest may have limited value for species that require slow-developing microhabitats, such as tree hollows and logs, and the role that restored forest can play in maintaining populations of these species in production forest landscapes is poorly understood. We examined this issue by assessing the suitability of post-mining restored jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest as bat roosting habitat in a production landscape in south-western Australia. We used radio telemetry to track Gould’s long-eared bats (Nyctophilus gouldi) and southern forest bats (Vespadelus regulus) to diurnal roosts during both the maternity and mating seasons. No bats were tracked to a roost in restored forest despite one-third of bats travelling through, or above, restored forest from capture to roosting locations. Both N. gouldi and V. regulus preferentially roosted in large (>60cm DBH), mature trees in mid to late stages of decay. Absence of roosts, and suitable roost trees, in young (
ISSN:0378-1127
1872-7042
DOI:10.1016/j.foreco.2015.07.027