Abstract
As bat populations are threatened by a range of factors, there is an increasing need to correctly identify and quantify the cumulative impacts of such factors to individual species. We have developed a fast and reliable method using the polymerase chain reaction to identify bat species from feces found near wind turbines at a north Texas wind farm. The primer sets we developed for the six species found at this site represent an efficient and cost-effective means of obtaining species information from fecal samples. Our approach could readily be applied to other species groups and applications (e.g., degraded carcasses recovered from hibernacula).
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Acknowledgments
Funding was provided by NextEra Energy Resources and a SERC Grant to AJS from the College of Science and Engineering at TCU. We thank the many technicians who collected bat carcasses and fecal samples, and the TCU Biology Department and Wolf Ridge for logistical support.
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Korstian, J.M., Schildt, A.J., Bennett, V.J. et al. A method for PCR-based identification of bat species from fecal samples. Conservation Genet Resour 7, 803–806 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-015-0488-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12686-015-0488-5