NRM’s Stevens set to tally bat roosting sites in Texas highway structures
By: Norman Martin
Researchers at Texas Tech are laying out a path to better understand Texas bat-bridge interactions in hopes of boosting management and conservation strategies for many declining bat species, as well as enhancing the important tasks these voracious bug-eating species provide to agriculture.
“Better management of forging and roosting habitat for bats will provide tangible means to help the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) further mitigate declines of bat species, especially those that are protected at either the federal or state levels,” said Richard Stevens, the project's leader, and the President's Excellence in Research Professor within Texas Tech's Department of Natural Resources Management.
Supported by a $775,247 grant from TxDOT, the newly funded three-year study is titled, “Use of Highway Structures by Bats in East Texas: Inventory of Bats and Assessment of Relative Contributions of Characteristics of Landscape, Habitat and Highway Structures in Determining Day-Roost Utilization.”
The economic impact provided by bats is enormous. Nationwide, bats provide approximately $22.9 billion of ecosystem services a year through their consumption of agricultural pests, in particular some of the most tenacious pests with some of the greatest economic impacts.
Although it's known that bats roost in bridges, Stevens said too little is known of the distribution and frequency of this behavior in most parts of the state.
Moreover, bats use some but not all TxDOT bridges, and to better understand and better manage the valuable ecosystem service provided by the bat-highway structure interaction it's vital to analyze quantifiable characteristics of such structures to better understand kinds of structures that may be potential bat roosting sites, Stevens said.
“We'll inventory 500 bridges during both summer and winter for bats along highways in the Post Oak Savanah and Piney Woods Ecoregions of Texas, as well as identify which bridges are occupied by bats, which bat species inhabit bridges and in what abundance,” Stevens said.
“For those same bridges, we will determine the habitat they occur in, as well as measure 16 bridge and 13 landscape characteristics to use in modelling distribution and abundance of bats relative to variation in these highway structures.” Currently, there's approximately 55,000 bridges and culverts along Texas highways, he said.
The Texas Tech research team, which includes two graduate students and six undergrads, will characterize road ecology for all bat species. Of particular interest though is characterizing the frequency and context of use of roadways and their infrastructure of a bat technically known as the Tri-colored Bat. The bat, one of the smallest bats native to North America, is currently under consideration by the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service for listing as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
CONTACT: Richard Stevens, President's Excellence in Research Professor and Professor of Natural Resources Management, Texas Tech University at (806) 834-6843 or richard.stevens@ttu.edu
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