QUANTIFYING SILVER-HAIRED BAT ROOSTING HABITS IN THE DIXIE FIRE BURN SCAR

Alexander C Lewis ; Cal Poly Humboldt; acl431@humboldt.edu; Ted Weller, Ho Yi Wan

Silver-haired bats (Lasionycteris noctivagans) are one of the most widely distributed forest bats in North America. Although wildfires have been increasing across their range, how they respond to wildfire is understudied. Previous studies on silver-haired bats and fire predominantly focused on roosting behavior in low-severity controlled burns or used acoustics to understand activity levels post-wildfire. Quantifying how silver-haired bats use the physical structures created by high-severity wildfires is critical in the face of rapidly shifting fire regimes. During the summer of 2023 and 2024 we radio-tracked 68 male and 23 female silver-haired bats to 41 roosts on the Lassen National Forest. Preliminary results indicate that bats used taller and larger-diameter trees compared to randomly selected trees on the landscape. Of these roosts, 87% were in stands burned at high severity. With fire frequency and severity forecasted to increase in the coming years, it is important to understand how areas that were thought devoid of life are potentially used by bats and inform post-fire management efforts

Natural History of Bats   Student Paper