Summary of 2015 Acoustic Bat Population Monitoring Data for Select Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network Parks
Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc.. 2016. Summary of 2015 Acoustic Bat Population Monitoring Data for Select Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network Parks. Laramie, Wyoming
The Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network (GLKN) goal is developing an acoustic monitoring program for bats to track populations through time given populations are already stressed from white-nose syndrome (WNS) at regional and national scales. In 2015 four parks of the GLKN implemented the first year of acoustic monitoring: Apostle Islands (APIS), Isle Royale (ISRO), Sleeping Bear Dunes (SLBE) and Voyageurs (VOYA). Full spectrum acoustic detectors were deployed during 2015 at the Parks to monitor bat activity, bat species present, and seasonal activity patterns. The GLKN has contracted with Western EcoSystems Technology, Inc. (WEST) manually review, identify and summarize bat calls recorded by the parks in 2015. This document is intended to meet the following objectives: 1) manually review and identify to species (when possible) all bat call recordings; 2) summarize acoustic recording metadata (number of survey nights, number of recordings, etc); 3) summarize species presence and relative frequency, and; 4) provide individual park summaries.