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Mark Kiser
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| Joined: | Tue Mar 12th, 2002 |
| Location: | Austin, Texas USA |
| Posts: | 58 |
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Posted: Mon Nov 11th, 2002 11:15 pm |
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Robert Irvine, an Australian bat box researcher for the past 10 years, posed the following question:
"Do artificial roosts actually increase bat numbers or just move them from less attractive roosts?"
I said "good question." I gave him 3 US bat house examples (one being the Univ. of Florida bat mansion) where colony size increase for certain years was larger than reproduction alone could account for (in this case, from 20,000 one year to 50,000 the next). In these examples, bats had been "recruited" from somewhere else, maybe by following other bats (word-of-mouth?). Also in each of these three examples, numbers of bats continued to increase from year to year, but eventually at a much lower rate. Presumably reproduction can account for some growth, and we know bats are using bat houses to raise young, but I'm curious if anyone out there has any examples of their own or opinions on this matter. To complicate matters, there are very few US bat species for which good population estimates exist, whereby one could track the rise or fall in numbers over the years.
Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Mark
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Joe Spencer
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| Joined: | Mon Feb 11th, 2002 |
| Location: | Massachusetts USA |
| Posts: | 528 |
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Posted: Thu Nov 14th, 2002 02:28 am |
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Yes good question, I have pondered it a few times myself. Is it possible that any enticement like better digs that gets bats to congregate would be potentially conducive to increasing reproduction? But then again males and females of bat house roosting species don't roost together except for the brief mating period late in the season so how could the latter help that much. One thing for sure is that when bats roost in these great numbers especially as in the UFL large bat house, they are obviously finding that there is enough food locally to support the large colony roosting in this bat house unless as you mentioned it is just a congregation of numerous smaller colonies. Mark it seems to me that any bat house or man made structure that can keep a colony safe and content can only help stabilize or increase their numbers consistently over time until the supply demand balance is met between prey and predator. Great stuff here I am still pondering! thank's for post.... joe.... 
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