Pesticides in the environment lead to issues in human health, environmental degradation, and inhibited wildlife function. Natural forms of pest control include carnivores and insectivores that consume agricultural pests. Studying the diet of bats within the agricultural landscape will reveal if they are eating agricultural pests. Documentation of bat quantities and species presence in known roosts, along with diet, will assist in estimating pest suppression impact on local growers. The results of this study will fill essential gaps in western bat knowledge and inform agricultural pest management on the benefits of decreasing their usage of chemical pesticides and increasing the utilization of bats as natural pest management. This may lead to a natural pest management plan that will promote an organic way of growing food for the health of wildlife, the environment and produce consumers. Once a month for a year we will collect guano and estimate colony size and species composition from four known bat bridge roosts across Ventura County’s Santa Clara River Valley (California). We will use metabarcoding, to identify agricultural pests, pollinators, and vectors in the diet of four bat species: the Mexican free-tailed, Pallid bat, Big brown bat, and Myotis spp. Revealing bat diet may determine if grower’s pesticides target the same pests that bats consume. Quantifying bat abundance, species composition, and identifying diet each month can also inform growers in what months is most beneficial to use less pesticides. Lacking knowledge on diet and bat behavior, throughout the seasons will be illuminated through studying a potential facilitative relationship between agriculture and wildlife this will uncover what major agricultural pests are being consumed by bats.

Ms. Heffelfinger obtained her Bachelor of Science in Biology with an emphasis in zoology and is currently pursuing her M.S. at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Her field of research includes how natural processes, such as feeding insectivorous bats, can provide pest control services to growers in Southern California by researching the diet of bats. Ms. Heffelfinger has experience in Anabat equipment, biological surveys and monitoring, wildlife rehabilitation, mist-netting and processing of passerines and bats, and ArcGIS and R script usage. She is a member of the Agriculture Research Institute Fellowship and will be presenting at the Nov. 2024 conference.