VARIATION IN ACOUSTIC ACTIVITY OF BATS ACROSS MULTIPLE HABITAT TYPES BY SEASON IN SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA.

Jonathan Janes; California State University Sacramento; jjanes@csus.edu; Anna Doty

With increasing pressure to mediate the effects of white-nose syndrome (WNS) in bats, more emphasis has been placed on understanding activity levels in areas where WNS and its causative agent, Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), have yet to cause the same population level crashes that species like Myotis septentrionalis has experienced. Bats in the Pacific Southwest, specifically within California, have remained relatively unscathed from the effects of WNS and Pd. However, that does not mean that population dynamics and overall activity levels will not change in response to any future introduction of WNS coupled with other external stressors; with the inevitable, it is important to understand how population dynamics exist currently. Specifically, a portion of this large study investigates how activity levels of bats vary by season across multiple habitat types within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park in California with objectives to provide a management framework for the National Parks System.

Poster Session   Student Paper