Survey of Bat Communities in the New River Gorge National River, Gauley River National Recreation Area, and Bluestone National Scenic River: Species Occurrence, Relative Abundance, Distribution, and Habitat Use
Castleberry SB, Miller KV, Ford WM. 2007. Survey of Bat Communities in the New River Gorge National River, Gauley River National Recreation Area, and Bluestone National Scenic River: Species Occurrence, Relative Abundance, Distribution, and Habitat Use. Technical Report NPS/NER/NRTR—2007/101. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
During the summers of 2003 and 2004, bats were surveyed in three National Park Service units in south-central West Virginia (NERI, GARI, BLUE) using a combination of live-capture and acoustic detection techniques. The objective was to augment previous surveysto provide a more thorough inventory of the bat community and to conduct the firstcomprehensive inventory of bats at BLUE. Overall, 175 bats were live-captured representing eightspecies: little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), northern myotis (northern long-eared bat; M.septentrionalis), eastern small-footed myotis (M. leibii), silver-haired bat (Lasionycterisnoctivagans), eastern pipistrelle (Pipistrellus subflavus), big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), redbat (Lasiurus borealis), and hoary bat (L. cinereus). 680 unique sites were acoustically sampledacross all park units (453 at NERI, 143 at GARI, and 84 at BLUE), detecting the aforementionedeight species as well as the federally endangered Indiana bat (M. sodalis). Indiana batecholocation calls were detected at 60 survey sites across all park units, most of which were inclosed-canopy riparian areas, supporting results of previous studies documenting habitat use bythe species. Indiana bat maternity colonies have not been documented from the park units, buttheir presence on the units could reasonably be expected based on the relatively large number ofecholocation calls recorded and the discovery of maternity roosts in West Virginia to thesouthwest and the northeast of the park units. The eastern small footed-myotis, a speciesconsidered extremely rare and critically imperiled in the state, was captured at NERI (n=3) andwas detected acoustically at 57 sites across all parks. Based on our results, the large areas ofrelatively contiguous mature forest within these parks provide summer foraging habitat for atleast nine bat species, two of which are state and federally listed as vulnerable to extinction,highlighting the potential importance of these park units for bat conservation
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Castleberry, Steven; Miller, Karl; Ford, W.
- Date of Issue
- 2007-12
- Publisher
- United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service
- Units
- BLUE , ERMN , GARI , NERI
- Keywords
- Abundance (Biodiversity), Bat community, Distribution, Distribution (Biodiversity), Habitat Use, Inventory, Mammals, Presence (Biodiversity), Relative Abundance, Survey
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Mammals