Bats in a Human-made Forest of Central Nebraska

Authors

Keith Geluso, University of Nebraska at KearneyFollow

Date of this Version

3-2006

Document Type

Article

Citation

The Prairie Naturalist )March 2006) 38(1): 13-23

Associate editor for mammalogy: Brock R. McMillan

Comments

Copyright 2006, Keith Geluso. Used by permission

Abstract

Increases in wooded habitats have led to expansion in distributions of woodland mammals in the Great Plains. Herein, I report on the occurrence of bats in a human-made forest consisting of over 8,000 hectares in central Nebraska. The forest consisted of monocultures of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), and jack pine (Pinus banksiana). Individuals of the eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis) and hoary bat (L. cinereus) were captured in coniferous plantations during summer, and females of both species bore and raised young in the area. The silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans) also was captured in plantations but only in spring and early autumn, which suggests that plantations were used as stopover sites during migration. The big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) was observed roosting on human-made structures from April to November in riparian woodlands, and none was captured in plantations. Lastly, captures of two western small-footed myotis (Myotis ciliolabrum) on a building in a riparian woodland represent the first records of this species in central Nebraska. Thus, afforestation of grassland habitats in the Sandhill Region of central Nebraska has provided habitat for migratory species such as L. borealis, L. cinereus, and L. noctivagans.