Abstract Gaps in the forest canopy appear to play a major role in local species richness as they increase habitat heterogeneity and border effects. In the case of bats, these small clearings seem to play an important role as foraging and commuting sites. However, further research is required to set the actual role of forest gaps on bat biology in order to consider them as conservation targets in forest management. In this study, we test whether bat species richness and activity are higher in gaps within a large Scot pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest than in the adjacent tree covered control sites. We also test these differences in the forest specialists since this group is particularly sensitive to forest management. To investigate this, we used bat detectors in 9 gaps and their adjacent control points during ten nights in July - August 2016 and 2017. The trends resulting from the analysis of 228,108 bat calls support that species richness and activity of bat assemblages were higher in gaps than in the adjacent control points. A similar pattern was detected in the most sensitive tree dwelling bat species. These results stress the importance of gaps as useable areas for the forest bat assemblages and suggest the interest of managing gaps for bat conservation within large areas of continuous tree cover.

中文翻译：

---

注意差距：树冠清除对温带森林蝙蝠组合的影响

摘要 林冠间隙似乎在当地物种丰富度方面发挥着重要作用，因为它们增加了栖息地异质性和边界效应。就蝙蝠而言，这些小空地似乎作为觅食和通勤地点发挥着重要作用。然而，需要进一步的研究来确定森林差距对蝙蝠生物学的实际作用，以便将它们视为森林管理中的保护目标。在这项研究中，我们测试了大型苏格兰松（Pinus sylvestris）森林中的蝙蝠物种丰富度和活动是否高于相邻树木覆盖的对照地点。我们还测试了森林专家的这些差异，因为这个群体对森林管理特别敏感。为了对此进行调查，我们在 2016 年 7 月至 2017 年 8 月和 2017 年的十个晚上在 9 个间隙及其相邻控制点中使用了蝙蝠探测器。对 228,108 次蝙蝠叫声的分析得出的趋势支持蝙蝠组合的物种丰富度和活动在间隙中高于相邻控制点。在最敏感的树栖蝙蝠物种中检测到了类似的模式。这些结果强调了间隙作为森林蝙蝠组合可用区域的重要性，并表明在大面积连续树木覆盖范围内管理间隙以保护蝙蝠的兴趣。