Bat Activity Over Small Ponds in Dry Mediterranean Forests: Implications for Conservation

Abstract

In dry Mediterranean forests, ponds constitute essential water resources for animals, especially during summer months. In southeastern Spain, land use changes and the human abandonment of mountainous zones have led to the loss of many ponds. These ponds are scarce landscape elements and, despite their usually small size (< 1,000 m2), they support a considerable amount of biodiversity. We studied the patterns of use of these ponds by bats during the activity season in dry forest landscapes of a Mediterranean region using acoustic monitoring. Our hypothesis was that these ponds are valuable landscape elements for bats, and bat activity and richness species will be high over them. Bat activity and species richness were compared between ponds and adjacent sampling points in the forest matrix. We recorded 14 bat species and our results show that both general bat activity (all species grouped together) and species richness were higher in the ponds than in the forest areas. Bat activity was higher in June, howev...