Bats respond positively to local drainage ditch vegetation and forest amount in the broader landscape in a North American agroecosystem

Abstract Bat populations are declining globally. Maintaining high‐quality habitat for bats can help mitigate extinction risk. Natural and semi‐natural linear vegetation features have been shown to provide shelter and foraging habitat for bats in temperate agroecosystems in Europe, yet their value for bats in North America has received little attention. Using automated ultrasonic recorders, we assessed bat species richness and activity across agricultural drainage ditches that varied in mean vegetation height, variability in vegetation height, and mean width in agroecosystems in eastern Ontario, Canada. Landscapes surrounding recording sites also varied in forest amount and mean field size, and recording sites were located at different distances from the nearest forest patch. We found that in general, bat activity at the community level and at the individual species level was positively associated with mean vegetation height and mean vegetation width; however, species appeared to vary in their response to variation in vegetation height. We also found a general positive relationship within and across species for bat activity with forest amount at the landscape scale. Overall, our results suggest maintaining or increasing vegetation height along drainage ditches and field margins as well as maintaining or increasing forest amount at the landscape scale will best support bats in temperate North American agroecosystems.