The Backyard Bats Study at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County represents an important opportunity to broaden awareness and interest in conserving species found in urban areas and to inspire more city dwellers to become stewards of the environments in which they live. Most bat species are intolerant of urbanization, though 19 known bat species are found to have persisted in Los Angeles County. Previous studies have focused only on large urban parks and little is currently known about bats in the urban core. The lack of urban biodiversity research is in large part due to the difficulties of accessing private property and conducting biological surveys in developed landscapes. Miguel will be focusing his talk on a bat acoustic monitoring project called the Backyard Bat Study. The Backyard Bat Study is a new community science project that aims to classify bat species richness, activity levels, and develop a larger community of bat advocates through community outreach initiatives. Further, the project will attempt to identify relationships between bat habitat specialists and various habitat variables within L.A.'s urban landscape. Miguel will be discussing what inspired this project, initial trends, challenges, opportunities, and next steps.

Miguel joined the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in April 2013. He is currently a Manager in the Community Science Office within the Research and Collections Department. Prior to working at the museum, he worked as a wildlife biologist for federal and state institutions throughout California. At NHMLA, his role as a biologist involves studying local urban wildlife species of Los Angeles such as bats and carnivores. His role as a community science manager involves promoting and creating community science projects, recruitment of community scientists, and community science training. He also initiated a jaguar camera trap study in southwestern Nicaragua, where his family is from. Besides constantly exploring local nature of Los Angeles, he is very focused on improving as an educator so that he may inspire a more diverse next generation of scientists.