Study of bat flight behavior by combining thermal image analysis with a LiDAR forest reconstruction

The nature of forest structure plays an important role in the study of foraging behaviors of bats. In this study, we demonstrate a new combined methodology that uses both thermal imaging technology and a ground-based LiDAR system to record and reconstruct Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bats) flight trajectories in three-dimensional (3-D) space. The combination of the two 3-D datasets provided a fine-scale reconstruction of the flight characteristics adjacent to and within the forests. A 3-D forest reconstruction, assembled from nine Echidna Validation Instrument LiDAR scans over the 1 ha site area, provided the essential environmental variables for the study of bat foraging behaviors, such as the canopy height, terrain, location of the obstacles, and canopy openness at a bat roosting and maternity site in Petersham, Massachusetts. Flight trajectories of 24 bats were recorded over the 25 m x 37.5 m region within the LiDAR forest reconstruction area. The trajectories were reconstructed using imaging data from multiple FLIR ThermoVision SC8000 cameras and were co-registered to the 3-D forest reconstruction. Twenty-four of these flight trajectories were categorized into four different behavior groups according to velocity and altitude analysis of the flight trajectories. Initial results showed that although all bats were guided by echolocation and avoided hitting a tree that was in all of their flight paths, different bats chose different flight routes. This study is an initial demonstration of the power of coupling thermal image analysis and LiDAR forest reconstructions. Our goal was to break ground for future ecological studies, where more extensive flight trajectories of bats can be coupled with the canopy reconstructions to better establish responses of bats to different habitat characteristics and clutter, which includes both static (trees) and dynamic (other bats) obstacles.