Sex-specific Summer Roost-site Selection by Seminole Bats in Response to Landscape-level Forest Management

摘要

Although importance of forested corridors to navigating and foraging bats has been documented, the relationship between corridors and roost-site selection has not been studied. From late May to mid-August 2003–2006, we used radiotelemetry to investigate roost-site selection by Seminole bats (Lasiurus seminolus) on an intensively managed landscape with forested corridors in southern South Carolina. We tracked 27 (10 males and 17 females) adult Seminole bats to 90 (41 males and 49 females) diurnal roosts. We found 61% (n = 25) of male and 63% (n = 31) of female roosts in forested corridors, which comprised 11% of the landscape. We modeled roost-site selection with logistic regression and used Akaike's information criterion for small samples (AICc) and Akaike weights to select models relating roost-site selection to landscape-level features. Our results indicated that several factors (i.e., distance to nearest corridor and distance to nearest mature pine stand) influenced roost-site selection and that differences existed between males and females, and among female reproductive condition. Examination of our data suggests that landscape-level features are more important than tree- and plot-level characteristics for roosting by Seminole bats on this managed forest. Corridors may represent a feasible approach to maintaining suitable roosting habitat for Seminole bats in managed forest landscapes.