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ARS Home » Plains Area » Sidney, Montana » Northern Plains Agricultural Research Laboratory » Pest Management Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #418151
Research Project: Biological Control and Habitat Restoration for Invasive Weed Management

Location: Pest Management Research

Title: Fire in feces: bats reliably record fire history in their guano

Author
item TSALICKIS, ALEXANDRA - Auburn University
item VACHULA, RICHARD - Auburn University
item WELCH, CONNER - Auburn University
item Campbell, Joshua
item WATERS, MATTHEW - Auburn University

Submitted to: Geophysical Research Letters
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 9/23/2024
Publication Date: 10/4/2024
Citation: Tsalickis, A., Vachula, R.S., Welch, C.J., Campbell, J.W., Waters, M.N. 2024. Fire in feces: bats reliably record fire history in their guano. Geophysical Research Letters. 51, e2024GL112045. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL112045.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL112045

Interpretive Summary: Bat guano records from caves have become a new tool for understanding past environmental changes. The past frequency of wildfire in the southeastern United States is unknown due to the inability to separate out intentionally set fires (e.g., prescribed burns) by paleo-Indians. We utilized a modern guano core from Tennessee and examined it for charcoal and compared it to the known modern fire record. The charcoal in bat guano was strongly correlated with prescribed burns but not wildfires. We attribute this to bats avoiding large and/or intense wildfire but frequenting areas that have had low-intensity prescribed burns. Prescribed burns have been shown to enhance insect abundance and diversity which should attract insectivorous bats. We hope study encourages future research to utilize bat guano as a viable paleofire archive.

Technical Abstract: New paleofire approaches are needed to resolve knowledge gaps and biases that occur from existing paleofire records. While typical paleofire reconstructions focus on lake and peat sediments, bat guano is an unconventional archive that shows great promise. In this study, we present a sedimentary charcoal record preserved in a modern, post-bomb bat guano deposit and compare its accumulation to historical fire data. We find strong correlations between charcoal accumulation rates (CHAR) and non-winter prescribed burns. The charcoal in bat guano is more strongly correlated with prescribed fire than wildfire or total area burned, which is likely due to bats seeking out areas burned by prescribed fire for better foraging opportunities. We attribute the CHAR in guano to better record area burned by fire during non-winter months to winter bat hibernation. Our comparison of CHAR values in the Cripps Mill Cave guano core and historical data shows that charcoal preserved in bat guano are a reliable paleofire proxy system. Bat guano’s ability to reliably record prescribed fire has important implications for the paleofire field, which has traditionally been unable to distinguish human-caused fire from wildfire. This study encourages future research to utilize bat guano as a viable paleofire archive.