Forests are major habitat of bats and provide essential resources such as roosts, foods and water. In Japan, conifer plantation covers more than 40 % of forest area and residual broad leaved secondary forest's patches within the conifer plantation matrix are one of the representative forest landscapes. Forests structures are quite different between these forest types. This difference might affect bats activities because they are sensitive to spatial structure. However, few studies tested this topic in Japan.
In order to examine bats activities in each of the forest types, we conducted acoustic survey in Tochigi prefecture, Japan. We conducted acoustic survey using bat detector at 12 secondary and 12 plantation stands in 3 periods, early summer, midsummer and autumn. Recorded bat calls were classified into 4 groups: (1) Rhinolophus type, (2) Nyctalus / Vespertilio type, (3) Pipistrellus type and (4) Murina / Myotis type. Rhinolophus type's activity was higher in secondary forests than plantations in midsummer, while Nyctalus / Vespertilio type's activity was higher in plantations in midsummer and autumn.
Our results showed that utilization of forest by bats are different among bat's sound groups. Mixture of secondary forests and plantations might support coexistence of different bat's groups in this landscape.