Winter diet of bats in working forests of the southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain.

ABSTRACT: Working forests comprise a large proportion of forested landscapes in the southeastern United States and are important to the conservation of bats, which rely on forests for roosting and foraging. While relationships between bat ecology and forest management are well studied during summer, winter bat ecology remains understudied. Hence, we aimed to identify the diet composition of overwintering bats, compare the composition of prey consumed by bat species, and determine the potential role of forest bats as pest controllers in working forest landscapes of the southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain. During January to March 2021-2022, we captured 264 bats of eight species. We used DNA metabarcoding to obtain diet composition from 126 individuals of seven bat species identifying 22 orders and 174 fam

SUBMITTER: Perea S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11150266 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature