PELLSTON, Mich. — Brady Forton held a map in the passenger seat as the vehicle crept along a dark forest road at 10 miles per hour — slow enough to record bats but fast enough, the research team hoped, not to detect the same animal twice.

An acoustic detector hung outside the van, listening for what Forton could not hear: the high-frequency echolocation calls of bats at the University of Michigan Biological Station, the more than 10,000-acre research and teaching campus in northern Michigan. 

Before departing to record an acoustic survey using a device mounted on a van, Brady Forton looked over the route throughout UMBS property.

“It becomes a lot more physics- and math-based, looking at waves and acoustics,” Forton said.

The U-M senior studying ecology and evolutionary biology spent the summer at UMBS asking a question with implications beyond the historic research station’s forests: Eight years after the last bat surveys, what bat species are at UMBS — and are populations hit by white-nose syndrome beginning to recover?

White-nose syndrome is a fungal disease that disrupts bats during hibernation and has eliminated nearly 90% of Michigan’s bats since its arrival in the state in 2014. Bats also are facing habitat loss and other environmental pressures like wildlife smoke. Bats play important ecological roles including consuming insects, so their responses to environmental change can reveal broader changes in an ecosystem. 

A bat under a pavillion at UMBS

Knowing which bat species are present, where they are active and how often they are detected can help researchers identify signs of decline or recovery.

Forton was the 2026 Bach-Hazlett Fellow at UMBS, which is located along Douglas Lake and Burt Lake about 20 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge.

The largest of U-M’s campuses, UMBS is where Forton completed his first independent research project while taking the Field Mammalogy course in July.

The Bach-Hazlett Fellowship covers tuition, room, board and research fees and supplies for an undergraduate student conducting research in ecology and behavior alongside a Biological Station course.

As a student in the Field Mammalogy class, Forton practiced techniques in wildlife trapping, handling, and monitoring while also learning mammalian species identification, Michigan natural history, and the collaborative nature of fieldwork.

Brady Forton sat with Dr. Jessica Light to show her acoustic surveys he captured of bats.

Working with Dr. Jessica Light, the Field Mammalogy course instructor and principal investigator, and teaching assistant Vianey Cardiel, Forton also conducted two kinds of acoustic surveys for his research project.

Stationary detectors recorded bats passing fixed locations, while a detector mounted outside a slowly moving vehicle recorded activity along standardized routes.

“We have four quadrants, and we drive through all of them,” said Cardiel, who also is a master’s student in public health at U-M. “If you drive 10-20 miles per hour, you're unlikely to pick up the same caller twice.” 

A van in the UMBS fleet was known as the "batmobile" when Forton used it for acoustic surveys. A blanket draped outside the window acted as a buffer to protect the van from the device. The blanket also reduced rattling.

The surveys are in collaboration with the North American Bat Monitoring Program and Bat Conservation International. Rather than directly counting individual animals, the recordings allow researchers to identify likely species and compare bat activity across places and time.

That comparison is especially valuable because UMBS classes last conducted summer-long bat surveys in the 2010s, including the last time in 2018. The new work could help show whether species affected by white-nose syndrome are recovering.

“We have an idea of previous populations, but it will be interesting to see where we are now, a decade after its introduction, and whether they’re bouncing back,” Light said.

Several students in the Field Mammalogy class in July 2026, including Forton, planned a bat walk using technology that translates echolocation to frequencies humans can hear to enable students to listen to the bats around them.

The team also is investigating whether wildfire smoke affected when and how much bats flew. Smoke from Canadian wildfires periodically reduced air quality in northern Michigan during the 2026 field season, giving the researchers an opportunity to compare acoustic activity under different conditions.

“Does it change the amount of time they spend in the air or the timing of their hunt?” Light said. “We just don’t know.”

Analysis will continue during the 2026–27 academic year as the team compares new recordings with surveys collected by earlier UMBS classes and researchers. The researchers hope to publish findings on species activity, changes over time and possible effects of wildfire smoke.

Examining a bat in the UMBS specimen collection in July 2026. Photo Credit: Marc-Grégor Campredon, Office of University Development | University of Michigan

The goal is to inform the conservation of bat communities affected by white-nose syndrome, while further establishing UMBS as a valuable site for long-term bat research.

Light is a U-M and UMBS alum. She earned her undergraduate degrees in biology and resource ecology and management in 1998 from U-M. Light spent two summers at UMBS.

“The first time was the summer of 1996 when I took Field Mammalogy and Habitats and Organisms. My second summer was 1998 when I took Parasitology and did an independent study on mammal parasites with Dr. Phil Myers,” Light said.

Now a professor at Texas A&M University, Light has come full circle as Forton’s science mentor at UMBS in 2026.

For Forton, who transferred to U-M in Ann Arbor in LSA's Residential College from the university’s campus in Flint, the research project at UMBS changed his understanding of what it means to do science.

Months of preparation had shown him how much he did not know. Fieldwork revealed to him that uncertainty was not a failure. It was the reason for the research.

“When I got here, I realized no one else knew what was happening either,” Forton said. “That’s why we’re studying it.”

The lesson he carried back to Ann Arbor is simple: “It’s OK to know nothing. Just be interested and take the time to learn.”

Since the Bach-Hazlett Fellowship was established in 2017, it has supported eight undergraduate students at UMBS.

Dr. Cathy Bach and Dr. Brian Hazlett

Dr. Cathy Bach, a retired ecologist, taught General Ecology at UMBS for over 20 years between 1984 and 2012. Her husband Dr. Brian Hazlett was a long-time faculty member and previous director at UMBS. He passed away in March 2026 in Ann Arbor. Hazlett was regarded as one of the world’s experts on hermit crab behavior. A hermit crab species is even named after him. He also studied the chemical ecology of crayfish

 

The University of Michigan Biological Station serves as a gathering place to learn from the natural world, advance research and education, and inspire action. We leverage over a century of research and transformative experiences to drive discoveries and solutions to benefit Michigan and beyond.

Our vast campus engages all of the senses. Its remote, natural setting nurtures deep thought and scientific discovery.

Founded in 1909, UMBS supports long-term research and education through immersive, field-based courses and features state-of-the-art equipment and facilities for data collection and analysis to help any field researcher be productive. It is where students and scientists from across the globe live and work as a community to learn from the place.

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