Reading Microclimate Pockets Through Ambient Airflow Sound

Hibernacula microclimate drives where bats cluster and whether Pd flourishes, yet field teams rarely map airflow because doing so requires entering the cave with anemometers. EchoQuilt derives airflow patterns from the sound the moving air already makes.

A 2021 winter survey in a multi-entrance West Virginia hibernaculum logged a 2.3°C spread across 40 m of main passage: a cold sink near the upper entrance ran at 3.1°C while a warm back chamber held at 5.4°C, with tri-colored bats (Perimyotis subflavus) densely clustered in the warmer pocket and Myotis sodalis distributed along the colder wall. The 2.3°C spread is a big deal because Pseudogymnoascus destructans grows optimally between 5 and 10°C, and the warm pocket sat squarely in that zone. Without mapping the airflow driving the gradient, biologists had no mechanistic explanation for why the tri-colored cluster kept losing individuals faster than the Myotis wall line, and management response stayed reactive.