CHARACTERISTICS OF FEEDING ROOSTS OF VIRGINIA BIG-EARED BATS IN DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST

Foraging ecology and summer habitat requirements remain unknown for th e Virginia big-eared bat (Plecotus townsendii virginianus), an endange red subspecies of Townsend's big-eared bat. Thus, we examined use of c liff habitat by this bat in Daniel Boone National Forest (DBNF), Kentu cky, in 1990-92 and measured 21 habitat variables in 241 potential roo sts. Virginia big-eared bats used rock shelters with large entrances a nd deep passages as feeding roosts. Entrance height, entrance width, s helter depth, and shelter width explained most of the variation in the data. Discriminant function analysis of shelter use based on external (P = 0.0006) and internal (P = 0.0001) variables, separately, were si gnificant. However, neither set of variables reliably classified shelt ers from an independent data set into feeding roosts or nonroosts. The se data suggest that Virginia big-eared bats used a wide range of roos t sites in DBNF, and that managers should protect cliff habitats, espe cially those with a high density of rock shelters.