Bat Habitat Use In Logged Jarrah Eucalypt Forests Of South-Western Australia

ABSTRACT

Forest logging is a major threat to global biodiversity (Sala

et al. 2000) and a growing demand for timber means logging

rates are increasing (Perry, Ram & Hart 2008). Consequently,

there is a drive to develop forest timber harvesting strategies

that maintain biodiversity alongside timber extraction.

Attempts are, therefore, being made to integrate conservation

into production forests according to ecologically sustainable

forest management principles such as themaintenance of stand

structural complexity and landscape connectivity and heterogeneity

(Lindenmayer&Franklin 2002).

Forest bats are one group with great potential for assessing

the effectiveness of ecologically sustainable forestmanagement

because they are typically sensitive to logging impacts and play

key ecological roles in forest ecosystems, indirectly affecting

other forest biota (Clarke, Rostant & Racey 2005). Although

there are many ways in which logging affects forest bats (Hutson,

Mickleburgh & Racey 2001), reductions in the quantity

and suitability of foraging habitat, food resources or roosting

sites are likely to be major impacts (e.g. Brigham et al. 1997;

*Correspondence author. E-mail: [email protected] Forkner et al. 2006; Peters,Malcolm&Zimmerman 2006).