2017 Volume 42 Pages 9-15
The aim of this study was to compare the abundance of insects between natural forests and larch plantations, and to consider the reasons for lower habitat quality of plantations for the bats. We selected 10 points each in the natural forest and in the larch plantation, and used malaise traps to catch flying insects from June to September 2013. We found that insects were more abundant in plantations than in natural forests, especially those belonging to Diptera and Lepidoptera. These results suggest that the lower habitat quality of plantations for forest-dwelling bats is caused not by prey abundance, but by the other factors, such as low availability of roost trees in the plantations.
