The Use of Wildlife Crossings by Bats Msc Thesis- Forest and Nature Conservation Myotis bechsteinii Julia P Kamp The Use of Wildlife Crossings by Bats Assessing if and how frequent different bat species use wildlife overpasses in Germany Msc thesis Report – Forest and Nature Conservation Date: September 2016 Author E-Mail Student number Julia P. Kamp
[email protected] 910507418080 Supervisors E-Mail Organization Pim van Hooft
[email protected] Wageningen University Mathias Herrmann
[email protected] ÖKO-LOG Freilandforschung Photo front page: Julia Kamp Summary Growing and expanding infrastructure, cities and agriculture increase habitat fragmentation. Roads and highways pose geographical barriers for all kind of wildlife and hamper animal movement and migration. Not only large mammals are affected by this type of habitat fragmentation, but also smaller mammals that have large home ranges. Especially bats are vulnerable to habitat fragmentation. Depending on their clutter adaptation, some bat species preferably fly along vegetation structures and rarely over open spaces. Therefore it has been suggested that bats rely on structures that safely guide them over highways and wide roads. Although the use of wildlife overpasses by wildlife is well studied, only little knowledge is available about bats using such crossings. Hence, the topic of my study was to investigate the use of over-road wildlife crossings by bats. The results would provide useful information about the importance of wildlife overpasses for bats and could make an important contribution to bat conservation. I investigated 7 different wildlife overpasses within Germany; 3 in the uplands in south west Germany (Rhineland-Palatinate) and 4 in the lowlands in north east Germany (Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Hither Pomerania).