Tshering Dendup
Other projects
20 Aug 2018
Patterns of Foraging Activity of Insectivorous Bats in Remnant Forest in the Sub-Tropical Zone of Bhutan
It is difficult by visual technique for the identification of flying bats. However, acoustic identification of free flying bats is possible with different professional bat detectors which is proven to be very effective in monitoring bat activity and other related research work on bat ecology, such as species richness, species composition, distribution pattern, activity level, habitat use of a particular insectivorous bat species or bat community. Therefore, baseline of call library/comprehensive reference call collection is required from the very region to proceed further scientific research through acoustically. Since most insect-eating bats emit echolocation calls, and some bat produce calls with different characteristics in their call frequencies, this project aims to establish comprehensive call library for the insectivorous bats from this very region, Bhutan. Therefore, this very work will make a great contribution to determine the baseline of acoustic identification of bat of Bhutan which would make easier in identification of bat species to future scholars/researchers from this region to work towards the conservation.
Acoustic identification of flying bats is a vital component in an acoustic bat survey by using bat detectors, which is increasing popular in studying distribution, activity level and habitat usage of insectivorous bats. Since the insect-eating bats emit echolocation calls with different frequencies by different species provides a greater potential to chiropterologist for investigating bat ecology through acoustic identification of species.
However, emission of echolocation call of same species varies from different regions due to geographical variations. Thus, comprehensive reference call collection is required as a baseline from the very region to make an appropriate identification of bat species from the region. Therefore, this very upcoming project will make a great contribution to establish the baseline of comprehensive call library of micro-bats from southern Bhutan for the future scholars or researchers to undertake studies on bat ecology acoustically.
The study is going to conduct in two contiguous districts namely: 1. Samdrup Jongkhar located in (26° 55′ 0″ N, 91° 37′ 0″ E). 2. Pema gatshel district (27° 0′ 0″ N, 91° 15′ 0″ E). Generally, there are four distinct seasons: winter (December to February) mostly driest months, spring as a flowering season (March to May), summer with heavy rainfall (June to August) and autumn as shedding season (September to November). The land use will be mapped with ArcGIS version 10.3.1 © 2015 Esri based on Land Use and Land Cover of Bhutan, 2016, Ministry of Agricultural and Forest.
To capture bat species, we would deploy different types of capturing methods such as: mist netting [(3x14 m) no. 5], harp traps (140 x 140 cm), hand net/sweep nets (use improvised materials) over different identified habitats such as old growth forest, community forest and water bodies. After the morphological measurement of every captured species, their call will be recorded by M500 USB ultrasound detector or D240x bat detector by following in-hand recording methods and hand released method depending upon the species that we captured. Bat Sound software, version 4.2.1 (Pettersson Elektronik, AB, Upsala, Sweden) with a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz and FFT with 1024 set to a Hanning Window will be used for the measurement of call parameters manually.