Use of roots and foraging habitats by forest bats, conservation management proposals

• Main Author: Tillon, Laurent
• Other Authors: Unité de recherche Comportement et Ecologie de la Faune Sauvage (CEFS), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Université Paul Sabatier - Toulouse III, Stéphane Aulagnier
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: French
• Published: HAL CCSD 2015
• Subjects: Myotis bechsteinii; Myotis nattereri; Plecotus auritus; Forest; Home range; Detectability of bats; Individual habitat selection; Tree-roost; Behavior of fission-fusion; Deadwood; Conservatory forest management; Chiroptères; Forêt; Domaine vital; Détectabilité des chiroptères; Sélection individuelle de l'habitat; Arbre-gîte; Comportement de fission-fusion; Bois mort; Gestion forestière conservatoire; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology
• Online Access: https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01772895; https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01772895/document; https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01772895/file/2015TOU30384-1b.pdf; https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01772895/file/2015TOU30384-2b.pdf

The forest is the center of many interests that fuel the debates of our society. These debates are particularly exacerbated since the french " Grenelle de l'Environnement " in 2008. Among the various expectations, forest produce wood that is the subject of attentions, both by an increased demand for certain types of trees and by the naturalist world which sees in it one of last refuges for biodiversity in our modified landscapes. Thus, if the forest manager is trying to develop a management that is as much multifunctional as possible, it remains dependent on fragmented knowledge on the link between biodiversity and the forest ecosystem. Despite the establishment of a conservation policy that seeks to balance timber production and species preservation, the way to conduct such a policy is based on concrete field experiences yet scientifically unsubstantiated. Bats are good candidate species to study the response of biodiversity to forest management: they select networks of tree-roosts in which they form breeding colonies composed of several dozen individuals and they exploit forest habitats to hunt their prey, prey which themselves depend on forest microhabitats. However, their study is recent in forest and provides very vague management guidelines. To help managers implement a conservation management strategy, we thus studied the behavior of forest usage by three species of gleaning bats, Myotis bechsteinii, Myotis nattereri and Plecotus auritus. This work required to focus on the methods available to understand the use of space by each individual (home range) and how each individual selects its hunting habitats. We showed that each species had a unique response to available habitats and that the status of individuals (sex, age and reproductive status) intervenes in explaining the selection of tree roosts and hunting grounds. Both compartments are constrained by the availability of suitable habitat, helping to explain the structuring of habitat selection factors and the shape and surface of individual home ...