Project Description: The goal of this project is to provide an assessment of how bats have and are likely to continue responding to the rapid and significant decline in their populations and to document both spatial and temporal changes that can help guide best management or mitigation actions for park maintenance projects and operations. This project supports a public purpose of facilitating the public’s understanding of natural resources by providing data analyses and a final report that will be shared to increase public awareness, knowledge, and support for the stewardship of the natural resources. The scientific community and researchers external to NPS will gain by new knowledge provided through research and related results disseminated of natural resource information.
Current data availability includes acoustic monitoring at 3 fixed sites that have been continuously surveyed using stationary acoustic detectors throughout the active season (late May through October) from 2010 through 2017, and an additional 6-20 passive or stationary sites have been surveyed for shorter intervals in support of park operations. Data from mist netting surveys was collected at or near these passive acoustic collection sites monitored at different times throughout the active season (April — October) summers from 2010 through 2017. Each of these data types provide differing but ultimately complimentary assessments of bat species presence and relative abundance through space and time. Importantly we have data available both before (2010 and 2011) and after (2012 onward) the first discovery of white-nose syndrome in ACAD.
Both acoustic and mist netting data collection employs a repeated sampling design that allows for an occupancy modelling approach (MacKenzie et al. 2002) to evaluate the proportion of sites occupied, by species, while accounting for imperfect detection of bats on a nightly basis. Accounting for imperfect detection may be particularly important for Myotis bats, because low abundances (due to population declines associated with white-nose syndrome) may reduce the ability to detect bat presence relative to other species with greater abundance. An occupancy modelling approach will allow us to probabilistically quantify the proportion of surveyed sites where each species is present, will provide a measure of spatial variation in occupancy across ACAD, and will provide an assessment of changes in occupancy through time. For sites repeatedly sampled across years, we can also assess rates of local extirpation and colonization using multi-season occupancy models (MacKenzie et al. 2003), and the likelihood of species co-occurrence using multi-species models (Rota et al. 2016).
In addition to changes in site occupancy we will evaluate both intra- and inter-annual variability in bat activity levels among sites. This assessment will be based on relative number of calls recorded during both regular (e.g. weekly) and biologically informed (e.g. maternity, volent periods) time intervals. Using these data, we will explore both spatial (across sites) and temporal (among years) patterns in bat activity throughout the park, which will provide a complimentary assessment to that of occupancy with respect to how populations of each species have been changing following the introduction of Pd into the park ecosystem.
Lead Principal Investigator: Dr. Erik Blomberg, University of Maine
Partner Institution: University of Maine
Federal Agency: National Park Service
Federal Agency Technical Contact: Rebecca Cole-Will
Project Type: Research
Project Discipline: Natural Resources
Project Sub-Discipline(s): Biological (Ecology, Fish, Wildlife, Vegetation, T&E)
Start Year: 2018
End Year: 2021
Initial Funding Amount: $14,912.00
Federal Grant Number: P18AC00897
Amendments
- Amendment Number: 01, Year: 2019, Amount: $15,000.00
- Amendment Number: 02, Year: 2020, Amount: $15,000.00
Location: Acadia National Park
State(s): Maine
Products Associated with this Project:
- No products found.