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Home Range Expansion By Evening Bats (Nycticeius Humeralis) In An Urban Environment
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2020
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Despite the negative connotation of urban sprawl for bat populations, fragmented green spaces, such as parks, have the potential to provide necessary resources for bats. Certain resources, such as water sources, however, can be ephemeral when subject to prolonged periods of high temperatures and low precipitation. Thus, for those bats utilizing urban green spaces, we hypothesized that they would expand or shift their home ranges to access alternative resources in the surrounding neighborhoods. We conducted a telemetry study tracking resident evening bats (Nycticeius humeralis) caught in a local park system across their summer activity period from 2017-2019. Our results supported our hypothesis, demonstrating that bats expanded their home ranges from the park system into the surrounding neighborhoods when average nightly temperatures increased. Thus, our study highlights the importance of the surrounding urban neighborhood for bats, and if managed appropriately could potentially contribute to and encourage healthy, stable bat populations.
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Environmental and Sustainability Sciences