Locating bat roosts through the coupling of diffusion-type models and static acoustic detectors

Henley, Lucy 2022. Locating bat roosts through the coupling of diffusion-type models and static acoustic detectors. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Bats play a vital role in ecosystems around the world, but human activities have put their habitats at risk. To ensure that habitats are protected, ecologists must first locate their roosts, the structures in which they sleep. Unfortunately, locating roosts can be extremely difficult and time consuming; bats are small, nocturnal creatures that fly, and are therefore elusive and difficult to track. This thesis aims to use mathematics to develop a method to estimate the locations of bat roosts and reduce the survey effort required by ecologists. Firstly, we use data from radiotracking surveys, in which the locations of individual bats are tracked over multiple nights, to inform a model of bat movement throughout the night. We show that movement is in two distinct phases: (i), dispersal away from the roost, (ii), followed by a gradual return back to the roost. We describe these two phases using partial differential equation models and stochastic agent based simulations. Next, we develop a method to estimate the location of bat roosts using a combination of these movement models and acoustic bat surveys. We fit movement models to data from acoustic bat detectors placed around the landscape using Approximate Bayesian Computation. Finally, we discuss the design of bat surveys and optimise the placement of bat detectors in order to minimise the expected error in roost estimates. We use an iterative process to place detectors one by one, using Bayesian Global

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Mathematics
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	7 October 2022
Last Modified:	07 Oct 2022 15:31
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/153141

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