th 16 Australasian Bat Society Conference Rydges Southbank, Townsville, QLD th 22-25 April 2014 Program and Map Map – Conference venues The Welcoming Function will be held at the Townsville Yacht Club on Plume Street, South Townsville. The main conference venue is the Convention Centre in the Rydges Southbank Hotel, Palmer Street, Townsville. The registration desk, morning/afternoon teas and poster session will all be at this venue. Lunches will be held at the Maritime Museum on Palmer Street, just a short walk from the conference venue. The Conference Dinner will be held at the Museum of Tropical Queensland on Flinders Street, Townsville. 2 th 16 Australasian Bat Society Conference Rydges Southbank, Townsville, QLD th 22-25 April 2014 Organising Committee Jen Parsons, Simon Robson, Robert Bender, Chris Clague, Greg Ford, Leroy Gonsalves, Simone Harvey, Micaela Jemison, Lindy Lumsden, Eridani Mulder, April Reside, Marg Turton, Olivia Whybird and Elizabeth Williams Conference Logo Design Megan Turton Conference Sponsors Platinum Sponsors: Titley Scientific Wildlife Acoustics Silver Sponsors: Advanced Telemetry Systems Australia Bat Conservation International Centre for Tropical Biodiversity & Climate Change Faunatech Austbat NRA Environmental Consultants Bronze Sponsors: Holohil Systems Ltd. Other sponsors: CSIRO Publishing Kriscomp Pty. Ltd (Nanobat) 3 Program Tuesday 22nd April 2014 – Townsville Yacht Club 6:00 – 9:00 pm Welcome Function and Registration Townsville Yacht Club, 1 Plume St, Townsville Wednesday 23rd April 2014 – Rydges Southbank 8:30 – 9:00 Registration 9:00 – 9:15 President’s address – Kyle Armstrong 9:15 – 9:30 Welcome to Country by Professor Gracelyn Smallwood, Bindal elder Plenary 9:30 – 10:15 John Woinarski: Conservation of the Christmas Island flying-fox Pteropus (melanotus) natalis: ‘to lose one is a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness’. 10:15 – 10:45 Morning tea Disease, Anatomy & Physiology Session chair: Kyle Armstrong 10:45 – 11:00 Keren Cox-Witton: How to report a disease event in bats. 11:00 – 11:15 Janine Barrett, John Bingham, Debbie Eagles, Amanda Bagnara, Jane Griffiths, Stacey Valdeter, Kelly Davies, Keren Cox-Witton, Tiggy Grillo & Rebecca Millers: Infiltrative fungal dermatitis in an Australian free-tail bat – Do we have White-Nose Syndrome 11:15 – 11:30 Kerryn Parry-Jones, Koa Webster & Anja Divljan: Stress in the city: food, sex and the grey-headed flying-fox. 11:30 – 11:45 Tania Bishop, Karissa Bernoth & Trish Wimberly: Heat stroke in flying-foxes in Southeast Queensland –treatment and management. 11:45 – 12:00 Gerardo Martín Muñoz de Cote, Lee F. Skerratt, Carlos Yáñez- Arenas, David Kault & Raina K. Plowright: Hendra virus risk of spillover: the effect of weather and climate. 12:00 – 12:15 Terry Reardon & Bill Breed: A short course: male bat genitalia for fun and profit. 4 12:15 – 1:30 Lunch – Maritime Museum Flying-foxes and Public Relations Session chair: Dave Waldien 1:30 – 1:45 Deb Melville & Trish Wimberley: A novel approach to the transportation of large numbers of orphan flying-foxes (Pteropus spp.). 1:45 – 2:00 John Martin: Flying-fox dispersal from the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney: an update. 2:00 – 2:15 Maree Treadwell-Kerr: Bat tourism: potential for improving public perception of bats. 2:15 – 2:30 Daniel Lunney: The representation of flying-foxes in the media. 2:30 – 2:45 Louise Saunders, Dominque Thiriet & Jenny Maclean: Flying-foxes, protect them or lose them. 2:45 – 3:30 Open discussion on flying foxes and public relations, led by Maree Treadwell-Kerr and Dave Waldien. 3:30 – 4:00 Afternoon tea Poster Session 4:00 – 5:00 pm Rachel Blakey, Kim Jenkins, Brad Law, Richard Kingsford & Debashish Mazumder: Nocturnal food webs: partitioning of prey resources between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by floodplain bats. Joanna Burgar, Vicki Stokes & Michael D. Craig: Random forest models perform best when classifying bat echolocation calls recorded by passive monitoring using Anabat SD1 detectors. Scott Castle, Elizabeth Kernan, Megan Backhausen, Emma Delarue, Ket Fossen, Catalina Graziano, Jennifer Hawkes, Taylah Locastro, Michelle Mason, Chris Corben, Terry Reardon & Simon Robson: Ongoing studies on the bats of Danum Valley Borneo. Lisa Cawthen, Stewart Nicol, Bradley Law & Sarah Munks: Effectiveness of the multi-spatial scale approach to forest management - a Tasmanian case study on bat. Vanessa Gorecki, Alison Martin, Rachel Lyons, Greg Ford, Chad Browning & Mark Chidel: Developing a nationally-consistent Guideline for the management of microbats roosting in road structures. David A. Hill & Jon Flanders: Whispering bats that shout out in the night: social calls of the Ussuri tube-nosed bat Murina ussuriensis. Yvonne Ingeme, Amanda Bush, Lindy Lumsden & Barry Carr: Southern bent-wing bat monitoring in south-west Victoria. 5 Heidi Kolkert: Quantifying the insect pest control services provided by microbats, birds and beneficial insects on dryland cotton farms. Brad Law, Leroy Gonsalves, Patrick Tap, Trent Penman & Mark Chidel: Can bats be monitored cost-effectively? A case from the Pilliga Forests. Aimee Linke: Get your bat pack today. Ariane M. R. Moreno, Tatiana S. Martins, Jerusa M. Oliveira, Paulo E. H. Fonseca, Ana Carolina Neves, Diogo Monteiro & Mariella B. Freitas: Alterations in lipid concentrations of fruit bats exposed to the insecticide deltamethrin. Terry Reardon & Krishna Venkataraman: Use of mobile marine radar for studying flights heights and roost exit flight paths of bats. Miranda Vidgen, Janine Barrett, Keren Cox-Witton, Ibrahim Diallo, Anita Gordon, Bruce Harrower, Nina Kung, Fred Moore, David Warrilow, Carol de Jong & Craig Smith: Identification of lyssavirus variants in Australian microbats (Vespertilioniformes). Arthur W. White & George Madani: Ghost bat decline in north-western Queensland and the Northern Territory: are cane toads implicated? Thursday 24th April 2014 – Rydges Southbank Student Presentations Session chair: Tim Pearson 8.45 – 9.00 Stephen Griffiths, Lisa Godinho, Graeme Coulson & Lindy Lumsden: If you build it they will come: use of artificial nest boxes by Gould’s wattled bat, Chalinolobus gouldii. 9:00 – 9:15 Charlotte Fletcher, Caragh G. Threlfall, Brad S. Law & Peter B. Banks: Bats, boxes and birds in an urban bushland matrix. 9:15 – 9:30 Christopher O’Connell & Gunnar Keppel: Availability and suitability of tree hollows in old growth mallee: a focus on microbats. 9:30 – 9:45 Eduardo Crisol-Martinez: Birds and microbats as biological control agents in macadamia: how distant are we? 9:45 – 10:00 Bradley Clark-Wood, Rachel Blakey, Kim Jenkins & Brad Law: The ecological response of insectivorous bats to coastal lagoon degradation. 10:00 – 10:15 Joanna Burgar, Vicki Stokes & Michael D. Craig: Location location location: the importance of mature forest as bat roosting habitat within a restored landscape. 10:15 – 10:45 Morning tea 6 Bat Communities & Modelling Session chair: Anna McConville 10:45 – 11:00 Pia Lentini, Tomas Bird, Stephen Griffiths, Lisa Godinho & Brendan Wintle: A global synthesis of microbat trait and demographic information to improve survival estimates. 11:00 – 11:15 April E. Reside & Jeremy VanDerWal: Bat conservation: global threats and local consequences. 11:15 – 11:30 Tamara Inkster-Draper, Will Edwards, Simon K.A. Robson, Jeremy VanDerWal & Steve Williams: Improved understanding of local biodiversity using global information: a case study of microbats in the Australian Wet Tropics. 11:30 – 11:45 Simon Robson, Will Edwards, Tamara Inkster-Draper, Jeremy VanDerWal & Steve Williams: Altitudinal gradients in bat community structure within the Australian Wet Tropics: temperature seasonality, not ‘height above sea level’, drives community structure. 11:45 – 12:00 Olivia Whybird, Chris Clague & Roger Coles: The bats of Melody Rocks. 12:00 – 12:15 Eridani Mulder: The bats of Pungalina-Seven Emu: Management for conservation in diverse habitats. 12:15 – 1:30 Lunch – Maritime Museum Bats & Management Issues Session chair: Brad Law 1:30 – 1:45 Leroy Gonsalves, Brad Law, Lachlan Wilmott, Paul Wearne, Jen Byrne & Deborah Ashworth: A strategic approach to prioritising derelict mine management for bats. 1:45 – 2:00 Elizabeth Williams: Mining and cave dwelling bats: can we adit it up? 2:00 – 2:15 Deb Melville, John Thompson, Hume Field, Alice Broos, Nina Kung, Carol de Jong, Perry Jones & Craig Smith: Landscape utilisation by black flying-foxes (Pteropus alecto) in Southeast Queensland suggests a propensity for weeds. 2:15 – 2:30 Mélanie Boissenin & Fabrice Brescia: Movements of the New Caledonian over-hunted flying foxes: implications for management. 2:30 – 2:45 Rachel Blakey, Brad Law, Richard Kingsford, Patrick Tap & Jakub Stoklosa: A bat’s ear view of the forest: the contrasting responses of bats and their insect prey to gap density. 2:45 – 3:00 Gillian Dennis, Brett Gartrell, Colin O’Donnell & Alastair Robertson: Bykill of the endemic lesser short-tailed bat from toxic baiting to control exotic mammals in a New Zealand conservation reserve 7 3:00 – 3:30 Afternoon tea 3:30 – 5:00 ABS Annual General Meeting 6:00 onwards Conference Dinner at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Friday 25th April 2014 – Rydges Southbank 8:45 – 9:00 Terry Wimberley: Reflections on ANZAC Day. Plenary Session chair: Dan Lunney 9:00 – 9:30 David L. Waldien, Micaela Jemison & Christopher Woodruff: Partnerships for the proactive conservation of the world’s bats. Conservation & Rare Species Session chair: Dan Lunney 9:30 – 9:45 John Woinarski, Andrew Burbidge & Peter Harrison: The Mammal Action Plan 2012: why, how, what implications, and what results? 9:45 – 10:00 Chris Clague: The state of play of the bare-rumped sheathtail bat Saccolaimus saccolaimus in Queensland. 10:00 – 10:15 Roger Coles, David Lane & Ivaylo Kovachev: Echolocation ecology and distribution of the bare-rumped sheathtail bat Saccolaimus saccolaimus: the Bornean-Australian connection. 10:15 – 10:30 Richard Meutstege, Roger Coles & Hugh Spencer: Observations on the foraging and roosting behaviour of the bare-rumped sheathtail bat Saccolaimus saccolaimus in the Cape Tribulation region of Queensland, Australia. 10:30 – 10:45 Kyle N. Armstrong, Glenn Hoye, Julie Broken-Brow & Greg Ford: Overcoming impediments to effective survey of Saccolaimus species on Cape York, Queensland. 10:45 – 11:15 Morning tea Monitoring & Acoustic Techniques Session chair: Pia Lentini 11:15 – 11:30 David Westcott, Adam McKeown, Jen Parsons, Mellissa Dobbie, Peter Caley & Daniel Heersink: The National Flying-fox Monitoring Program: an introduction. 11:30 – 11:45 Simon Robson, Kyle Armstrong & Jeremy VanDerWal: A global database for bat calls? It’s time! 8 11:45 – 12:00 Kyle N. Armstrong & Ken P. Aplin: Identifying bats in an unknown acoustic realm using a semi-automated approach to the analysis of large scale full spectrum datasets. 12:00 – 12:15 Jennifer E. Taylor, Leroy Gonsalves, Vaughan Monamy & Murray V. Ellis: Acoustic surveys detect range extensions along inland rivers for three insectivorous bat species with coastal distribution. 12:15 – 12:30 David Hill, M.S. Shahrul Anuar & Jon Flanders: Acoustic lure enhances survey and research capacity for microbats in forest habitats. 12:30 – 12:45 Tim Pearson & Jennifer Clarke: A year in the life of an urban flying- fox camp - an audio perspective. 12:45 – 2:00 Lunch – Maritime Museum Bat Roosting Behaviour Session chair: Lindy Lumsden 2:00 – 2:15 Deb Melville & Alice Broos: Simultaneous utilisation of a day roost by four species of Australian mainland flying-foxes (Pteropus spp.). 2:15 – 2:30 Brad Law, Mark Chidel & Peter Law: Changes in annual survival over 14 years in a suite of hollow-roosting bats - a forest logging experiment within a climate refuge. 2:30 – 2:45 Margaret Turton: Roost activity at a maternity colony of white- striped free-tailed bats (Austronomus australis) in a building. 2:45 – 3:00 Robert Bender: A second long-term study of Gould’s wattled bat in Ivanhoe, Melbourne. 3:00 – 3:15 Bruce Thomson: Making mansions for Myotis on the Mary River 3:15 – 3:45 Awards & closing remarks 3:45 – 4:15 Afternoon tea 4:30 Bus pickup 5:00 onwards Flying-fox camp flyout at Palmetum Saturday 26th April 2014 Post-conference Field trip – Mount Zero 9