Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Our research programs seek a greater understanding of the evolutionary causes and consequences of the life history variation in bats and to use this to make meaningful contributions to conservation management, as many of our study species are `endangered' or poorly understood. In our work we endeavour to build capacity in science and conservation through the creation and maintenance of inclusive and supportive research teams that include individuals from diverse backgrounds at all career stages. To date, we have marked more than 2,500 bats (> 40 species) in Belize and Ontario (Pinery Provincial Park) with radio-frequency identification transponders (so-called PIT-tags). Also, over the last 2 years we have built technical capacity for monitoring and collected >40,000 identity-date-time-location records of >20 species in preliminary studies. We are now poised to make important discoveries in our respective areas but we need infrastructure to capitalize on the work we have done capturing and tagging these individuals. Our aim here is to acquire the resources to build a network of RFID monitoring nodes in Belize and Ontario. The 30+ network nodes placed in the Belize and Ontario will continuously scan for PIT tagged individuals and collect their identity-date-time-location records. Data from each node will be integrated to understand space-time information on individual animals and any co-occurrence patterns of pairs and groups. With this network we will increase data acquisition rate by orders of magnitude providing a temporal and spatial resolution of movements of individuals that's well beyond what is currently possible. Opportunities for capacity building include project design, arranging permits and building and deploying equipment, data management (e.g., collection, appropriately collecting and archiving the data and metadata, coding for storage, querying and analysis), preparation of reports including permit reports, theses and publications, and participating in stakeholder and team meetings, conferences, and with the media. Our network will have many users and permit contributions to the complementary mandates of others including the American Museum of Natural History, Ontario Parks and Friends of Pinery Provincial Park. The network will permit significant expansion of our data acquisition stream and lead to more and higher impact (more data rich) research articles that will not lead to a better understanding of species biology and improve inference on management approaches to improve conservation outcomes both nationally and internationally. The students involved in this program will benefit from networking opportunities with dozens of mentors and peers and access to a very rich data stream providing them the opportunity to generate very high impact articles and make them highly competitive for future opportunities.