NORTH CAROLINA—Bats are important components of healthy forests and provide critical ecological services across numerous different ecosystems. For decades, bat populations throughout the southern U.S. have been declining due to habitat disturbance and loss.

USDA Forest Service scientist Susan Loeb contributed to two recent publications to address this issue, suggesting ways to improve bat management practices across the South. The first, published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, studied the effects of fire and severity on the occupancy of bats in mixed pine-oak forests. The second, published in the Journal of Mammalogy, involved a qualitative synthesis of temperate bat responses to silvicultural treatments.

Because prescribed burning is a common forest management practice across the southern and eastern U.S., understanding how foraging bats respond to forest structure changes generated by fire is vitally important.

Loeb and colleagues monitored bats in 164 burned and unburned forest sites in 2014 and 2015 to compare their foraging and commuting habitat use in the different environments.

A key finding of this research was the positive impact of prescribed fire on bat habitat usage. All bat populations in the study were more likely to use burned areas relative to controlled, unburned sites. Overall, bats were detected by Loeb and colleagues at 94% of burned sites compared to 83% of un-burned sites.

“For a number of species and other taxa, prescribed fire really is a benefit,” explains Loeb. Fire removes the understory, which results in a thinned forest area with more room for foraging. Many forests in the eastern and southern U.S. are second growth forests and can be too dense for bat populations.

Not all bat species respond in the same way to similar management practices. Some treatments, like clear-cutting, may be beneficial for larger bat species but not for smaller bats. “One treatment does not fit all sizes,” explains Loeb.

While one management practice cannot be the ideal solution for all species, incorporating Loeb’s research findings into bat management practices moves us one step closer to maintaining safe habitats for of bats of all sizes—large and small.