Bats Kindle New Ideas About Wildfire

For most wildlife, forest fires mean destruction and death. But a new study finds that bats are unscathed by fire, and some may even benefit after a blaze.

Ecologists examined bat livelihood in burned and unburned areas of the Sierra Nevada one year after a colossal, human-caused wildfire. Surprisingly, deadlier fires made for livelier bats.

Bat ecologist Winifred Frick of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a team of scientists discovered bats prosper in burned habitats. Charred trees mean new homes and more food, they believe.

The results show that not all wildfire-wildlife interactions all detrimental, the team maintains an insight that may lead to more effective wildfire policies. The journal PLOS ONE published the team’s findings on March 6^th.

Frick and her team of ecologists observed bat activity in the aftermath of the 2002 McNally Fire, which burned 150,000 acres in the southern Sierra Nevada. Previously, scientists had studied the effect of wildfire on only a narrow range of animals – mostly birds and small mammals.

The researchers set up equipment in the forest one year after the McNally Fire. They took advantage of the fire’s mosaic patterns to compare bat activity across a spectrum of landscapes: unburned, moderately burned, and severely burned. In each targeted area, high-frequency microphones captured the silent shrieks of six groups of bats in their nightly scour for dinner.

All six groups showed equal or higher activity in burned areas when compared to unburned areas. “Bats could be resilient to this kind of disturbance,” says Frick. “We go out there and see a charred landscape and we think it’s totally destroyed, but the bats may find it a productive habitat for their needs.”

Bats took advantage of several of the wildfire’s effects, scientists believe. “Fire may provide a pulse of insects immediately after the fire and create roosting habitat later on as snags decay and their bark peels back,” says coauthor Michael Buchalski, a doctoral student at Western Michigan University. The cut-down in “clutter” opens up new areas for insect raids, he adds.

Animals that happily recover after a raging wildfire suggest that benefits of forest fire are more widely spread than scientists previously believed. At least among bat populations, wildfire plays a role in keeping forest communities balanced. The result may encourage land managers to rethink techniques in post-fire care and public land-burning policies, the team states.