Title: Summer Roost-Tree Selection by a Male Indiana Bat on the Fernow Experimental Forest

Author: Ford, W. Mark; Menzel, Jennifer M.; Menzel, Michael A.; Edwards, John W.

Year: 2002

Publication: Res. Note NE-378. Newtown Square, PA: U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northeastern Forest Experiment Station. 8 p.

Abstract: We attached a radio transmitter to an adult male Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) in June 2001 on the Fernow Experimental Forest in the Allegheny Mountains of north-central West Virginia. The bat was tracked for 4 successive days before the transmitter failed. The bat roosted in three living trees over the study period. Two roosts used for a single night each were in large shagbark hickories (> 45 cm d.b.h.); the roost used for two successive nights was located in a large sugar maple (69.1 cm d.b.h.). Roost trees were characterized by large areas of exfoliating bark and all were canopy-dominant within surrounding stands. One shagbark hickory was a residual tree left following a patch clearcut 6 years earlier. Although few inferences can be drawn from one Indiana bat, many characteristics of this individuals?s roost selections in the central Appalachians were consistent with tree roosts observed in other regions during the non-hibernation period of this species