I stayed a short month in Panama this summer – from mid-July to mid-August. The priority was to catch all the colonies we work on – more than 20 nights of catching for a total of around 300 bats. Many new bats have been transpondered and I have collected a lot of DNA (relatedness analysis) and feces samples (virus and diet studies). The highlight of the stay was the catch of 96 bats in one night. The catch started at 6PM and we finished processing the bats around 6AM.I had a small army of people from the batlab to help me – thanks to Teague, Basti, Julia, Sebas, Michelle, Toni, Santi, Dallas…
Unfortunately, three of the roosts with automated monitoring systems were abandoned (probably due to house renovation) but we installed two other automated monitoring systems. I also had the opportunity to present my PhD project to the scientific community – good practice with a lot of interesting questions.
In addition, I helped Sebas for a parallel project. As a pilot study for his master thesis, we equipped these bats with heart-rate and temperature transmitters. The bats were kept in captivity and video-taped. This preliminary data will help understanding the relationship between heart-rate, temperate and clustering prevalence. My fieldwork season is over but Sebas will stay until early September to operate more trials and continue this project in November-December, when we both go back for a new fieldwork season.
Unfortunately, three of the roosts with automated monitoring systems were abandoned (probably due to house renovation) but we installed two other automated monitoring systems. I also had the opportunity to present my PhD project to the scientific community – good practice with a lot of interesting questions.
In addition, I helped Sebas for a parallel project. As a pilot study for his master thesis, we equipped these bats with heart-rate and temperature transmitters. The bats were kept in captivity and video-taped. This preliminary data will help understanding the relationship between heart-rate, temperate and clustering prevalence. My fieldwork season is over but Sebas will stay until early September to operate more trials and continue this project in November-December, when we both go back for a new fieldwork season.
Late night at the batlab - processing bats. (c) Teague O'Mara
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