Morgan Hughes is one of Conservation Nation’s 2022 emerging conservationist grant winners. She graduated from Utah State University with a B.S. in wildlife management and the University of Florida with an M.S. in wildlife ecology and conservation with a certificate in tropical conservation and development. Morgan focused her graduate thesis on using next-generation genetic metabarcoding to describe bat diets, which resulted in two publications on the influence of bat diets on agriculture and disease. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at Northern University.
Between her academic experiences, she worked for a year in Costa Rica on biological monitoring projects and for three years in Peru on reforestation, trash management, and grazing management projects. Morgan has worked on research projects in the United States centered on bats, burrowing owls, snowshoe hares, prairie dogs, and freshwater fish.
Analysis of the Seasonal Movement of Bats
Morgan’s project will focus on identifying and protecting the corridors that bats move through on a seasonal basis in the dry forests of Northwestern Peru. She will sample bat community composition in six dry forest protected areas with varying types of moist forest barriers. Morgan will use acoustic monitoring and mist-netting to determine each species’ wing size, echolocation frequency, and body mass to assess their seed dispersal ability—a vital service many bats provide in ecosystem recovery and genetic connectivity. She will also use advanced genetic and isotopic analysis to determine which bat populations interact throughout the year and the types of ecosystems each bat has recently used. Morgan acknowledges that there could be potential logistical challenges or El Niño-related flooding in her area and will find alternate research sites if necessary. She also plans to support local undergraduate students in collecting data for their thesis projects and will host hands-on bat-related workshops for parents and schoolchildren.
