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The Endangered Pacific sheath-tailed bat (Emballonura semicaudata) is a small, insectivorous cave-bat that has been extirpated from much of its historic range. A rapid biodiversity assessment to Ovalau Island, Fiji was completed in January 2021 to solicit information on the species from indigenous communities and work with them to conduct searches of potential and known cave-roosts. We identified three new roosts (50–150 bats each) and confirmed that a historic cave-roost last evaluated in 2012 still had ∼100 bats. Ovalau Island is recommended as a national conservation priority for the species given there are at least four active roosts with 350–600 bats; local community members should be involved in the protection of these important cave-roosts.

Global biodiversity decline is continuing largely unabated. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species (hereafter, Red List) provides us with the gold standard for assessments, but taxonomic coverage, especially for invertebrates and fungi, remains very low. Many players contribute to the Red List knowledge base, especially IUCN Red List partners, IUCN-led assessment projects, and the Specialist Groups and Red List Authorities (RLA) of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. However, it is vital that we develop the next generation of contributors and bring in new, diverse voices to build capacity and to sustain the huge assessment effort required to fill data gaps. Here, we discuss a recently established partner network to build additional capacity for species assessments, by linking academia directly into the assessment processes run by Specialist Groups and RLAs. We aim to increase Red List “literacy” amongst potential future conservationists and help students to increase publication output, form professional networks, and develop writing and research skills. Professors can build Red List learning into their teaching and offer Red Listing opportunities to students as assignments or research projects that directly contribute to the Red List. We discuss the opportunities presented by the approach, especially for underrepresented species groups, and the challenges that remain.

Biologists have an imperfect understanding of the reproductive biology of bats, which is primarily limited to mating systems and development of neonates. Few studies have addressed parturition in bats. Most of these are not contemporary and are based on data obtained from captive animals housed in laboratories. No studies have been conducted to assess the natural parturition process of Geoffroy’s Rousette Fruit Bat Rousettus amplexicaudatus, a Yinpterochiropteran native to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. This study provides the first comprehensive description of parturition in this species. It is based on the natural behaviors exhibited in a wild colony of R. amplexicaudatus in the southern Philippines, which were recorded using high definition video cameras. The qualitative birthing model developed in this study, based on data collected from 16 pregnant females, provides new insights into the reproductive biology of this species. Female R. amplexicaudatus give birth while hanging upside-down. Pups are born in the head-first presentation. Females do not immediately sever the pups’ umbilical cord after birth. Instead, the cord acts as a tether, preventing the pup from falling to its death in the event that it loses its grip on the female. This appears to be an adaptive strategy meant to help overcome some of the challenges associated with giving birth while suspended and hanging upside-down.

Conservation and management of bats requires reliable and repeatable data regarding the size and patterns of variation in size of bat colonies. Counts and densities calculated via photography have proven more accurate and repeatable than visual counts and ocular estimates. Unfortunately, the potential of photography to investigate the size of a bat colony and roost density has rarely been explored. In the summer of 2006, a colony of Geoffroys Rousette Fruit Bat, Rousettus amplexicaudatus, was photo-documented in the Monfort Bat Cave, in the Island Garden City of Samal, Davao del Norte, Mindanao, Philippines. We selected 39 images to develop roost density estimates. Mean (+or-SE) roosting density was 403+or-167.1 bats/m2 and 452.3+or-168.8 bats/m2 on the walls and ceiling of the cave, respectively; densities were not significantly different from each other (P=0.38). Based on these standardized data, we estimate that the initial 100m of the cave contained 883,526 bats. Ultimately, this photographic technique can be used to develop a statistical approach which involves repeatable estimates of colony size for Geoffroys Rousette Fruit Bats at Monfort Cave and will enhance ongoing monitoring activities throughout this species range.

Dead wood is important to small mammals and is hypothesized to be used as travel paths. We evaluated the likelihood of different a priori models regarding sex- and season-specific differences and if quantity of wood in the environment influenced path selection of 41 Townsend’s chipmunks (Tamias townsendii) in coniferous forests of western Oregon with the spool-and-line method using an information-theoretic approach. On average, 50% (SD ¼ 4%) of the surficial portion of a chipmunk’s path was associated with downed wood and 79% (SD ¼ 10%) was on top of logs. Chipmunks disproportionately selected paths with downed wood relative to its availability and the model indicating that quantity of wood in the environment influenced path selection was 22.6 times more likely than the null model. At average wood densities (paths with 26% wood), a chipmunk was 3.0 times more likely to select locations with downed wood than locations without downed wood (95% confidence interval [95% CI] ¼ 2.5‐3.5). Furthermore, chipmunks selected wood that averaged 1.2 times larger in diameter than randomly available wood (95% CI ¼ 1.1‐1.3). Our findings document that Townsend’s chipmunks preferentially use downed wood and we hypothesize that downed wood may influence fitness or survival of individual chipmunks.

Although benefits of interdisciplinary studies are numerous, potential exists for data acquisition for some aspects of such studies to impact data acquisition for other aspects. This may be particularly true in studies involving both trapping of small mammals and assessment of bird populations. We summarize the incidence of birds captured during 8 research projects in Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington that used 5 types of small-mammal traps, and discuss possible impacts of small-mammal trapping on bird surveys and possible mitigation measures. In these studies, 867 birds representing 17 species were captured in 703,138 total trap-nights (TN). The song sparrow (Melospiza melodia), spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus), Steller’s jay (Cyanocitta stelleri), and gray jay (Perisoreus canadensis) accounted for 86% of all bird captures; ground-foraging species accounted for 54% of all bird captures. Relatively high capture rates were observed in Sherman (H. B. Sherman Traps, Inc., Tallahassee, Flor.) an...

Bats are not birds and other problems with Sovacool’s (2009) analysis of animal fatalities due to electricity generation Craig K.R. Willis a, , Robert M.R. Barclay , Justin G. Boyles , R. Mark Brigham, Virgil Brack Jr., David L. Waldien , Jonathan Reichard g a Department of Biology and Centre for Forest Interdisciplinary Research, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3B 2E9 b Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4 c Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa. d Department of Biology, University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada S4S 0A2 e Environmental Solutions and Innovations, Inc. 781 Neeb Road, Cincinnati, OH 45233, USA f Bat Conservation International, P.O. Box 1621603, Austin, TX 78716, USA g Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology, Biology Department, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA

Roosts are a critical habitat component for bats and may influence their survival and fitness. We used radiotelemetry to investigate characteristics of day-roosts of female long-eared myotis (Myotis evotis) in watersheds characterized by different forest conditions and the spatial relationships between day-roosts and available water. We tracked 21 bats to 73 roosts (n = 102 occasions) from June to August 1996 and 1997 on the western slope of the Cascade Mountains, Oregon. Bats primarily used conifer stumps as day-roosts in watersheds dominated by younger forests and used conifer snags, and to a lesser extent conifer stumps, in watersheds with greater proportions of older forests. Individual long-eared myotis used different types of structures as day-roosts, and type of structure used did not differ with reproductive condition. Day-roosts were primarily located in upslope habitat and averaged 0.59 ± 0.03 km from available water and 0.66 ± 0.02 km from capture sites. Roosts were not located closer to available water than random points, but were closer than random points to captures sites. Conifer snags used as day-roosts averaged 34 ± 5 m in height and 93 ± 12 cm diameter at breast height (dbh); snags in intermediate stages of decay had highest use. Use of conifer snags was positively associated with the number of snags within 20 m and negatively associated with distance from stand edge. Conifer stumps used as day-roosts averaged 133 ± 9 cm in height and 59 ± 4 cm dbh. Western hemlock and Douglas-fir stumps were used more often than western redcedar stumps as day-roosts. Odds of a stump being used as a day-roost increased with increasing height of the stump (downhill side) and whether it was situated in a gap in vegetation. We contend that management of day-roosts for forest-dwelling bats should focus on maintaining large conifer snags across landscapes through space and time. In landscapes where there are relatively few large conifer snags, stumps appear to provide important, but ephemeral, roosts for long-eared myotis.