Listening to the response of bat and bush-cricket communities to management regimes of powerline clearings

Linear transportation infrastructures (LTIs) are established drivers of habitat fragmentation and barrier effects. Yet, they represent an increasing surface of managed seminatural habitats where increased consideration of biodiversity outputs is needed in an era of global biodiversity decline. A combined effort by both scientists and stakeholders is, therefore, needed to evaluate the promises and limits of these alternatives so that they best achieve their conservation potential. Our study explores the effects of forest powerline clearings on biodiversity, as well as the potential benefits of integrated vegetation management (IVM) as alternatives to clear-cuts. We recorded the acoustic activity at 35 pairs of forest/clearing stations in two forested regions of France in 2021. Our results suggest that powerline clearings represent increased movement opportunities for bats and, most particularly, edge-foraging species. They also provide suitable habitats for bush-cricket species, particularly species requiring thermophilic conditions. We detected no direct benefit from IVM on bat communities. However, bush-cricket communities appeared richer, more acoustically active, and statistically different from adjacent forests in clearings favoring secondary vegetation compared with clear-cut ones. This collaborative study provides data on understudied taxa in the context of LTIs and sheds light on conservation promises and limits associated with their management. We recorded the acoustic activity underneath 35 powerline clearings in two French forests in 2021. Increased acoustic activity reveals increased movement opportunities for bats and enhanced habitat suitability for thermophilic bush-cricket species. Integrated vegetation management (IVM) shows limited direct benefits for bat communities but fosters richer and more active bush-cricket communities. image