Research in Krka National Park, Croatia
(2021-2025)
My research in Croatia began in 2021, when I joined Operation Wallacea and their in-country partners, BIOTA, to undertake bat surveys in and around Krka National Park. I subsequently took on the role of Lead Scientist at Operation Wallacea’s Krka research station and returned each summer until 2025, developing and expanding the research programme over five field seasons. What began with bat surveys grew into a broader programme of biodiversity research, combining long-term field data, targeted ecological studies and species inventories. This work has culminated in seven peer-reviewed publications spanning several aspects of the region’s biodiversity, the most recent of which is a checklist of the herpetofauna of Krka National Park.
Manuscripts
Hughes, M., Roper, M., Van Caenegem, W., Poyner, S., Jongerius, E., Van der Wijden, B., Csorba, G., Antal, T., Middleton, N., Vance, K., Langmuir, N., Williams, A., Jelic, D., & Martin., T. E. (Accepted, 2026). Efficacy of lure spinners for improving the catch rate of bats in a systematic trial in Krka National Park, Croatia . Acta Chiropterologica.
Hughes, M., Mironova, P., Blažević, M., Cantero Sanchez, V., Fox, S., Goeter, A., Haelewaters, D., Jones, D., Krajnović, M., Kurali, A., Langmuir, N., Murray, J., Poyner, S., Roper, M., Soria, C., Suvoroga, A., Vance, K., Van Caenegen, W., Jelić, D., & Martin, T. E. (Submitted, 2026) An annotated checklist of bats (Chiroptera) of Krka National Park, Croatia. Journal of Bat Research and Conservation.
Hughes, M., Gilbert, E., Day, J., Napaul, S., Harvey, C. E., Thomas, O., Phangurha, J., Goshen, J., O’Brien, A. R., Atanasova, I., Abdullah, A., Šimić, T., Blažević, M., Murray, J., Martin, T. E., & Jelić, D. (2026). An annotated checklist of the herpetofauna of Krka National Park, Croatia. Acta Herpetologica. https://doi.org/10.36253/a_h-20183
Hughes, M., Jelić, D., & Martin, T. E. (2026). Unusual roost site selection in the first recorded maternity colony of Bechstein’s bat Myotis bechsteinii (Kuhl, 1817) in Croatia. Mammal Communications, 11, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.59922/mc-26x01pa
Haelewaters, D., Hughes, M., Barão-Nóbrega, J. A. L., Slater, K. Y., & Martin, T. E. (2024). Standard deviation: Standardized bat monitoring techniques work better in some ecosystems. PLoS ONE, 19(12), e0311553. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311553
Hughes, M., Murray, J., Graves, V., Byford, M., Dias, J., Bazeley, E., Bailey, J., Bajić, P., Jelić, D., & Martin, T. E. (2024). Updated checklist of the terrestrial mammals of Krka National Park, Croatia (Mammalia). Lynx, new series, 55(1), 157–172. https://doi.org/10.37520/lynx.2024.006
Hughes, M., Thomas, O., Suvorova, A., Saunders, T., Krajnović, M., Jelić, D., Martin, T. E., & Haelewaters, D. (2021). The skynet, a new method to capture bats over water. Journal of Bat Research & Conservation, 14(1), 215–221. https://doi.org/10.14709/BarbJ.14.1.2021.18