Description
Mesa Verde National Park offers important habitat for bats. Recent high-intensity fires, drought, and pest insect infestations have destroyed a large proportion of the park's pinyon-juniper, Douglas-fir, and ponderosa pine habitats, but the bat fauna of the park has not been assessed since these widespread changes took place. Fort biologists documented 16 species of bats at Mesa Verde in 2006, which includes all species of bats known from western Colorado. This included the first documentation of a maternity colony of the spotted bat (Euderma maculatum) in Colorado. The high mesas at Mesa Verde, bisected by numerous canyons and cliff faces, provide very favorable roosting habitat for bats, and this was borne out by results of radiotracking bats of several species to roosts. The availability of roosts in crevices in cliffs probably overrides any extensive reliance on pinyon or juniper trees and snags as roosts by bats. Additional documentation of the bat fauna, assessment of their reproductive condition, and determination of roosting habits will be carried out in 2007, with a final report delivered in 2008. This dataset consists of an Excel workbook containing capture histories of bats in and around the park during the years of 2006 and 2007.
Data Records
The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 544 records.
This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.
Versions
The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.
How to cite
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
O'Shea, Tom, Paul Cryan, Laura Ellison, Ernest Valdez, Lance Everette. 2011. Bat Use of Coniferous Forests at Mesa Verde National Park. Fort Collins Science Center. US Geological Survey.
Rights
Researchers should respect the following rights statement:
The publisher and rights holder of this work is United States Geological Survey. To the extent possible under law, the publisher has waived all rights to these data and has dedicated them to the Public Domain (CC0 1.0). Users may copy, modify, distribute and use the work, including for commercial purposes, without restriction.
GBIF Registration
This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: 144e0a35-3fc3-408b-84c9-2ea2959b0a5b. United States Geological Survey publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF-US.
Keywords
Metadata; small mammals; national parks; protected areas; live capture; trapping; capture techniques; Observation
Contacts
- Principal Investigator
- Originator
- Metadata Provider ●
- Author
- Author
- Principal Investigator
- Author
- Author
Geographic Coverage
Montezuma County, Colorado
| Bounding Coordinates | South West [37, -109.05], North East [37.73, -108.11] |
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Taxonomic Coverage
15 species of bats of Colorado
| Order | Chiroptera (bats) |
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| Species | Lasionycteris noctivagans, Myotis volans, Myotis yumanensis, Antrozous pallidus, Myotis ciliolabrum, Myotis occultus, Myotis evotis, Tadarida brasiliensis, Euderma maculatum, Lasiurus cinereus, Myotis thysanodes, Myotis californicus, Eptesicus fuscus, Corynorhinus townsendii, Parastrellus hesperus |
Temporal Coverage
| Start Date / End Date | 2006-01-01 / 2007-01-01 |
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Project Data
No Description available
| Title | Bat Use of Coniferous Forests at Mesa Verde National Park - Mist Net Records |
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| Funding | USGS Fort Collins Science Center; Research Project: 8327CNG.2.0 |
| Study Area Description | Various different areas within Mesa Verde National Park. |
| Design Description | We sampled bats in mist nets set near three sewage lagoons and less frequently at five other sites on 58 nights from 17 may to 13 August 2006. Mist-netting was concentrated along the margins of four sewage treatment lagoons at various locations within the park. At sewage lagoons we generally set all nets possible given our equipment, averaging 91 m of coverage each night using nets that were set on 3-m-high poles. On nine nights at three of the sewage lagoons we also set multiple 20-m-long stacked nets at 6-m heights using a pulley system. Nets were tended from dusk until midnight or later, depending on the weather. We also netted for bats at the drainage tunnel under the Cliff Palace on one night. We also set nets on two nights on two nights near the stairwell at the Far View Visitor Center, a site where bats are known by park staff to hang up and night roost at night between foraging bouts. For each bat captured we determined sex and reproductive condition. Pregnancy was assessed by palpation (most reliable at advanced stages), lactation by prominence of nipples and teats (verified by expression of a milk droplet when possible, and post-lactation. Bats were categorized as adult or volant juvenile (young-of-the-year) based on ossification of the phalangeal epiphyses as viewed against a light source. The elevations of the sites where we captured bats in mist nets varied from 1,939 m to 2,476 m. |
The personnel involved in the project:
- Principal Investigator
Sampling Methods
Date, location, and taxonomic and morphological data for each individual bat captured.
| Study Extent | We sampled bats in mist nets set near three sewage lagoons and less frequently at five other sites on 58 nights from 17 may to 13 August 2006. Mist-netting was concentrated along the margins of four sewage treatment lagoons at various locations within the park. At sewage lagoons we generally set all nets possible given our equipment, averaging 91 m of coverage each night using nets that were set on 3-m-high poles. On nine nights at three of the sewage lagoons we also set multiple 20-m-long stacked nets at 6-m heights using a pulley system. Nets were tended from dusk until midnight or later, depending on the weather. We also netted for bats at the drainage tunnel under the Cliff Palace on one night. We also set nets on two nights on two nights near the stairwell at the Far View Visitor Center, a site where bats are known by park staff to hang up and night roost at night between foraging bouts. |
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| Quality Control | Although this data and information has been processed successfully on a computer system at the USGS Fort Collins Science Center, no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the accuracy or utility of the data and information on any other system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty. This disclaimer applies both to individual use of the data and information, and aggregate use with other data and information. It is also strongly recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of the metadata file associated with these data and information. The USGS shall not be held liable for improper or incorrect use of the data and information described and/or contained herein. |
Method step description:
- metadata received from ScienceBase, https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/5397d057e4b0f7580bc0cd16
Bibliographic Citations
- Metadata record for: O’Shea, T.J., P.M. Cryan, E.A. Snider, E.W. Valdez, L.E. Ellison, and D.J. Neubaum. 2011. Bats of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado: composition, reproduction, and roosting habits. Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist. 5(2011): 1-19. https://www.fort.usgs.gov/products/22601
- O’Shea, T.J., P.M. Cryan, E.A. Snider, E.W. Valdez, L.E. Ellison, and D.J. Neubaum. 2011. Bats of Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado: composition, reproduction, and roosting habits. Monographs of the Western North American Naturalist. 5(2011): 1-19. https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/wnanmonos/article/view/30412/28894
Additional Metadata
| Purpose | This dataset will help the National Park Service with the development of scientific information and decision support tools required to effectively manage terrestrial wildlife resources. Results are intended to assist with the development of adaptive management approaches for bats at Mesa Verde National Park. The purpose of the dataset is to 1) Compile, review, and synthesize available information on the occurrence and status of bats at and around Mesa Verde National Park; 2)Identify water sources in pinyon juniper forests where bats can be mist netted. |
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| Alternative Identifiers | 144e0a35-3fc3-408b-84c9-2ea2959b0a5b |
| https://bison.usgs.gov/ipt/resource?r=usgs-fort-mesaverde-bats |