Seasonal distributions and predicting migratory pathways for three species of bats

Understanding seasonal variation in the distribution and movement patterns
of migratory species is essential to monitoring and conservation efforts.
While there are many species of migratory bats in North America, little is
known about their seasonal movements. In terms of conservation, this is
important because the bat fatalities from wind energy turbines are
significant and may fluctuate seasonally. Here we describe seasonally
resolved distributions for the three species that are most impacted by
wind farms (Lasiurus borealis [eastern red bat], L. cinereus [hoary bat],
and Lasionycteris noctivagans [silver-haired bat]) and use these
distributions to infer their most likely migratory pathways. To accomplish
this, we collected 2880 occurrence points from the Global Biodiversity
Information Facility over five decades in North America to model species
distributions on a seasonal basis and used an ensemble approach for
modeling distributions. This dataset included 1,129 data points for L.
borealis, 917 for L. cinereus, and 834 for L. noctivagans. The results
suggest that all three species exhibit variation in distributions from
north to south depending on season, with each species showing potential
migratory pathways during the fall migration that follow linear features.
 Finally, we describe proposed migratory pathways for these three
species that can be used to identify stop-over sites, assess small-scale
migration and highlight areas that should be prioritized for actions to
reduce the effects of wind farm mortality.