Bat ecology and conservation in agricultural landscapes in the California Central Coast

Agriculture has drastically transformed California landscapes from complex, natural habitat to simple, food production systems, resulting in habitat loss for many species. I use the Central Coast of California, a productive agricultural region that also supports 15 insectivorous bat species, to: 1) examine the effects of agriculture on insectivorous bats across a range of scales, and 2) identify barriers to the adoption of conservation agricultural practices that benefit both agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. To examine the multiscalar effects of agriculture on bats, I used a passive acoustic survey to compare bat activity, bat diversity, and bat species richness on farms and in adjacent woodland patches. My research suggests that increased crop diversity can help to mitigate the negative impacts of agriculture on bats. I also assessed the relative influence of local vegetation and landscape structure of remnant woodlands on bat activity. I found that bats responded more strongly to landscape structure than to local woodland vegetation structure. Long, narrow woodland patches had higher levels of bat activity compared to compact patches, and even highly degraded woodlands had high bat conservation value.I used semi-structured interviews with growers to examine the effects of food safety standards on the adoption of conservation practices. I found that growers have abandoned or adopted practices to minimize perceived risk of liability in the case of a food borne illness, or in an effort to maintain market contracts via proactive compliance. In contrast, many smaller growers used crop diversification as a marketing strategy to secure more direct, decentralized market channels and avoid food safety audits.My research suggests that increased vegetative diversity on farms and the protection or addition of woodlands in areas that increase habitat connectivity can benefit bat conservation in agricultural landscapes. Additionally, I found that food safety standards represent significant barriers to grower adoption of conservation practices, and thus represent barriers to improving habitat quality for bats