All Ireland Daubenton’s Bat Waterway Monitoring Scheme 2006-2011 Irish Wildlife Manuals No. 61 All Ireland Daubenton’s Bat Waterway Monitoring Scheme 2006-2011 Tina Aughney 1, Steve Langton 2 and Niamh Roche 1 1. www.batconservationireland.org 2. [email protected] Citation: Aughney, T., Langton, S. and Roche, N. (2012) All Ireland Daubenton’s Bat Waterway Monitoring Scheme 2006-2011. Irish Wildlife Manual s, No. 61. National Parks and Wildlife Service, Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Ireland. Keywords: Daubenton’s bats, waterways, monitoring, transects, Habitats Directive, protected species Cover photo: Owencarrow River. Photo by Sheila Downes © NPWS The NPWS Project Officer for this report was: Dr Ferdia Marnell; [email protected] Irish Wildlife Manuals Series Editors: F. Marnell & N. Kingston © National Parks and Wildlife Service 2012 ISSN 1393 – 6670 Daubenton’s monitoring 2006-11 ____________________________ Contents Executive Summary........................................................................................................................................ 1 Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................................2 Introduction..................................................................................................................................................... 3 Why Monitor Bats in Ireland?...................................................................................................................3 Red & Amber Alerts ...................................................................................................................................5 How to Monitor Daubenton’s Bats?.........................................................................................................6 Echolocation calls and bat detectors.....................................................................................................6 ‘Bat passes’, a tool for surveying Daubenton’s bats...........................................................................8 Factors Influencing Activity Levels of Daubenton’s bats......................................................................8 Water Quality ..........................................................................................................................................9 Riparian habitat structure.................................................................................................................... 12 Street lighting along riparian zones ................................................................................................... 12 Weather & Climate change.................................................................................................................. 13 The aims of this report ......................................................................................................................... 14 Methods.......................................................................................................................................................... 15 Volunteer uptake and participation ....................................................................................................... 16 Influencing Factors – New Parameters .................................................................................................. 16 Water Quality ........................................................................................................................................ 16 Riparian habitat structure.................................................................................................................... 17 Street lighting along riparian zones ................................................................................................... 17 Statistical Analysis ....................................................................................................................................18 Bat Passes (counts) versus Binomial................................................................................................... 18 Data Included ........................................................................................................................................ 18 Relationship between Daubenton’s and other factors ..................................................................... 18 Trends..................................................................................................................................................... 19 Daubenton’s monitoring 2006-11 ____________________________ Power analysis....................................................................................................................................... 20 Results ............................................................................................................................................................ 21 Descriptive Statistics................................................................................................................................. 21 Volunteer participation from 2006-2011 ............................................................................................ 21 Volunteer recruitment and training 2006-2011................................................................................. 21 Waterway sites surveyed in 2006-2011 .............................................................................................. 22 Number of completed surveys in 2006-2011..................................................................................... 25 Number of bat passes recorded in 2006-2011.................................................................................... 26 Statistical Analysis of Results.................................................................................................................. 28 Relationship with other variables 2006-2010, survey-level data .................................................... 28 Relationship with other variables, 2011 spot-level data.................................................................. 31 Water Quality ........................................................................................................................................ 34 Yearly Trends ........................................................................................................................................ 37 Power Analysis - detecting Amber and Red Alerts for Daubenton’s bat ..................................... 39 Discussion...................................................................................................................................................... 41 Volunteers & Survey Coverage............................................................................................................... 41 Volunteer uptake .................................................................................................................................. 41 Survey Coverage, Dataset & Distribution in 2006-2011................................................................... 41 Statistical Analysis.................................................................................................................................... 42 Variables affecting activity, survey level........................................................................................... 42 Variables affecting activity – survey spot level ................................................................................ 43 Water Quality ........................................................................................................................................ 45 Yearly Trends ........................................................................................................................................ 46 Power Analysis ..................................................................................................................................... 46 Future Investigations into Climate Change .......................................................................................... 47 Conclusions................................................................................................................................................ 47 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................................ 48 Daubenton’s monitoring 2006-11 ____________________________ Bibliography and Relevant Literature........................................................................................................ 50 Glossary.......................................................................................................................................................... 54 Appendices .................................................................................................................................................... 56 Appendix 1................................................................................................................................................. 56 Summary Statistics................................................................................................................................ 56 GLMM Model 2006-2010 Analysis ..................................................................................................... 59 GLMM Statistics 2011 dataset ............................................................................................................