Bats in Germany are threatened by different anthropogenic factors. Therefore, it is important to monitor the populations over time to know their status and to take measures to improve their conservation. However, bats can be difficult to monitor, in particular forest species, due to their fission-fusion behaviour, which means that bat colonies regularly split into sub-groups using different roost, making monitoring difficult.

Within the framework of the BatTrend project, I will work with long-term data on bats colonies from southern Germany. The aim is to establish long term monitoring schemes for German forest bats that can provide reliable information on population trends. In particular, I will analyse existing long-term data from RFID-tagged colonies of Myotis bechsteinii, M. nattereri and Plecotus auritus, to address questions such as when and how often forest bats should be monitored in their summer roost to obtain a reliable estimate of their population. Once I have established a monitoring model for the above-mentioned species, I intend to extend these models to other bat species of Germany.

Furthermore, during my PhD I will continue collecting field data on marked forest bat colonies around the city of Würzburg, and I plan to evaluate different monitoring techniques for summer roost checks to find a low-invasive and accurate technique to estimate the number of bats in bat boxes. 

Publications:

Heim, O., Chávez, F., Courtiol, A., Paul, F., & Voigt, C. C. (2024). Guild-specific response of bats to motion-triggered LED lighting of bicycle trails. Conservation Science and Practice, 6(4), e13116. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.13116

Huszarik M, Roodt AP, Wernicke T, Chávez F, Metz A, Link M, Lima-Fernandes E, Schulz R & Entling MH (2023) Increased bat hunting at polluted streams suggests chemical exposure rather than prey shortage. Science of The Total Environment 905: 167080. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.167080