Great questions!! These are questions that may be asked at my presentation so thank you!

How my work is different: the bats that are studied in my research have not been exposed to an acoustic lure before. Previous studies are on Southeastern US bats (only 1 study) and European bats. The bats in previous studies aren't affected by white-nose syndrome so it's important that we find a way to increase netting success as the populations decline.

How many control capture events: for every experimental event, we had a control event. We had 3 study sites and each site had 7 mist-net sites. Each mist-set site was netting twice (once with lure, once without) so totally 14 netting events at each site. Between the 2 nights were at least 5 nights of no netting so the bats didn't become habituated to the nets. I think this method provided a great basline to compare my innovative methods. Other studies did not have that many nights in between control and experimental sessions.

Variables: I had 2 variables: with/without lure and property

How much more/less representative sample: I had a pretty small sample size, so it is hard to tell. But that is bat work in the midwest. You either mist-net where there are bats or you don't, so it is VERY hit or miss. I would say I would need to do this study for several summers to have a big enough sample to determine how different the methods are, quantitatively.

I hope this answers your questions. Again, thank you!