Students monitored the local bat population, led by Prof. Deanna Byrnes.Students monitored the local bat population, led by Prof. Deanna Byrnes.Students monitored the local bat population, led by Prof. Deanna Byrnes.Students monitored the local bat population, led by Prof. Deanna Byrnes.

SURE

Documenting bat colonies in Wisconsin

Summer 2010

Four Carthage students spent the summer studying bats, and their work may help make your summer outdoor activities more enjoyable.

"Bats are an important part of the ecosystem," explained Deanna Byrnes, assistant professor of biology. "They eat mosquitoes, beetles, moths, and all manner of insects."

In fact, a single brown bat can eat more than 1,000 mosquito-sized insects in just one hour, while pregnant or nursing mothers of some bat species will consume their body weight in insects each night, according to Bat Conservation International, an environmental group devoted to protecting bats.

This summer, four Carthage students — Brianne Birsa, '11; John Egner, '13; Amy Macemon, '12; and Alex Matzinger, '11 — conducted acoustic monitoring of local bat activity as part of a Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) project. They had two missions: to try to find where bats live during summer months, and to compare levels of bat activity in various habitats.

SURE research to help state prepare for lethal bat disease

The SURE students were assisting a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources effort to locate bat colonies in the state and estimate the size of the bat population. Prof. Byrnes explained that the DNR program is an effort to prepare for white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that is lethal to bats. The fungus (Geomyces destructans) was first discovered in upstate New York. It has not yet been detected in Wisconsin or any states bordering Wisconsin.

"It started out east, and it's creeping not-so-slowly westward," Prof. Byrnes said. "In four years it's moved from Vermont to Missouri. There's no cure for it, and it's killing large numbers of bats who live in caves. As far as we know, it doesn't affect other animals."

Bats also serve as critical pollinators for a wide variety of plants of great economic and ecological value. If the bat population is decimated, Prof. Byrnes said, "we're not sure what we're going to lose."

Prof. Byrnes was the faculty advisor on the SURE bat ecology project. Her interest in bats dates to 1986, when she worked with Don Wilson, now department chair and curator of vertebrate zoology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, on a research project in Costa Rica. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was about the evolution and ecology of bare-backed fruit bats. According to Prof. Byrnes, the fungus can be spread by bats and humans, but which is more often to blame remains undetermined. She adds that the effort to locate bats is done in summer because bats hibernate during winter, and many of the caves where they gather are unsafe then. She says bats' efforts to resist the disease disrupts their hibernation patterns.

"They wake up in January," she said of bats, "they try to find food, there is none, and they starve to death."

In spring, Prof. Byrnes said, female bats, who have been impregnated, disperse from the caves where they hibernated, to form smaller "maternity colonies," but "we don't really know where the males go. They don't form large colonies like the females. The males seem to move their day roosts more often through the summer."

Finding bats on campus

The four students went out several nights each week, looking for bats around campus and several other locations in Kenosha County. Interestingly, one of the most likely spots on campus to find bats has been Trinity House, the president's residence. "To do a bat count, you have to sit and wait for them to come out of their roosting site, around sunset," Amy said.

"Getting eaten by mosquitoes is a nightly occurrence," Brianne added.

On their expeditions, students brought a hand-held bat detector, linked to a personal digital assistant (PDA), a sort of mini-computer. With this device, they could pick up noises made by bats, but they couldn't determine the number of bats in an area. Students sought to compare dry and wet habitats for bats. For dry land, they checked urban and rural locations. On water, they compared bat presence on lakes and ponds to flowing water.

"Bats will go where there are insects," Amy said, so students had to wade into lakes and streams on their search.

Brianne said information gathered on the PDAs is entered into a computer, in hopes of identifying species of bats that the students find. There are seven species of bats commonly found in Wisconsin.

"We're not catching bats," Prof. Byrnes said. "The data we're gathering doesn’t require us to catch them."

Research an important stepping stone

Amy, an environmental science major from Racine, Wis., said the project "forces us to think about conservation in a different way, and opened my eyes to the importance of research."

John is a biology and neuroscience major from Joliet, Ill., who hopes to go to medical school. He plans further independent lab research with Prof. Byrnes this fall.

Brianne, a biology major from Joliet, Ill., called the project "a really great opportunity to learn basic research skills and teamwork. No matter what you go into, you're going to have to analyze data."

Alex, a geography major from Lake Zurich, Ill., liked participating in a pioneering project. "Everything we're doing is new," she said. “This makes it a good steppingstone for future research."

— Bill Kurtz, Carthage College

Stories about SURE

From SURE research to certain results
Carthage undergraduate research program leads to real world success

A New Direction
SURE research set Carthage alumna Erin Zimmerman on a new career path.

A Summer Puzzle
Students aim summer efforts at Professor Julie Dahlstrom's ongoing research into the mystery of diffuse interstellar bands.

The Environmental Fate of Fragrance Chemicals
Students begin new study with environmental science professor Sarah Rubinfeld.

Documenting Bat Colonies in Wisconsin
Four Carthage students spent the summer studying bats with Prof. Deanna Byrnes, assistant professor of biology.

'A long and complicated process' with real-life implications
Students study effects of endocrine-disrupting compounds on frogs.