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[CharlesMcFist]

I've breached the first layer of caverns finally, and don't know what to do with it. I finally have a water source (didn't embark on a river), so I might use it to create some drowning traps. Any other ideas?

[TruePikachu]

Secure it, as it can become quite hostile, what with FBs.

It can act as a source of more wood, too.

[neblime]

either setup cage traps so that there is no path from the cave to your fortress without them, or seal off/trap every map edge in the cavern.  Keep in mind FBs won't be affected by the traps though, so actually sealing off the map edge is recommended
as for what to do with it once you've secured it;
well, you should be able to see alot of ores in the increased surface area the cave provides, yeah you can use the water, harvest any cave plants you might not have had when you embarked, use it as a source of wood, use the space for stockpiles(depending how far it is from useful areas)?

[Viking]

Prepare for all your dirt and clay areas to slowly start growing fungus and mushrooms. This is all fun and good till a tree grows on a path over something crucial. If most of your fortress is in solid stone this won't be an issue but you may find yourself needing to place down stone floors in certain parts inside to keep areas unobstructed. Caverns can be fun though!

[xcorps]

Send in all but one of your male war dogs before you seal it. (Use meeting zones to tell them where to go). Put up a wall behind them. Keep moving the meeting zones around until they have explored the whole map.

Dig out as much of your soil layers as you can. Lotsa trees and shrubs will grow.

[Grim Portent]

Going to guess that you're fairly new to the game if you've only just breached caverns.

First you need to get at least a few tunnels near your stairs walled off, you don't want beasts getting in from tons of directions at once.

Then you're going to want to trap the remaining tunnels, cage traps work best but some weapon traps would also do the trick.

Turn off automatic web collecting in your orders. I've lost tons of dwarfs to giant cave spiders because they were collecting silk.

Set up an open path to the water you want to use, put walls near it and traps on the waters edge, cave crocodiles and giant olms like to ambush from the water. They're good eating, but can rip through unprepared dwarfs like a scythe through wheat.

Keep an eye out for gremlins. Not really dangerous but a bit of a nuisance.

If your stairs are open to the air at any point wall them off, many a dwarf has dodged off the edge of stairs and died.

Hunters can be useful for keeping cavern animal populations down but some players prefer to send in the military to cull crundle swarms and trolls.

[CreamyDoughnut]

If you want to try to capture some cave spiders for silk farming you can try the old door and cage-trap setup. Just put in a door to attract the building destroyers and some cage-traps around it. You can capture other things with this setup too, and a few of them are pretty damn fun to tame and have as guard-dog replacements.

Beyond that: secure it. Treat it as the outside, only with more possibilities for FUN to happen. Forgotten Beasts, GCS's, and annoying trogs can easily use it as a backdoor to your fortress if you don't have it guarded or well-controlled with traps. In the case of FB's, you might want to work your defensive plan with them in mind, they'll inevitably come to say Hi and some can be pretty nasty if all you have are a few stone-fall traps and two lazy marksdwarves on duty.

[Kumis]

Caverns have water, wood, shrubs in case your food supply goes tits up, silk, critters for capture (training and trade) and for exercising your army, and an abundance of interesting minerals. It's just a shame they have to be so far from the above-ground crops, otherwise I'd build more of my fortresses down in them.

As it stands, I mostly treat caverns as 'outdoors', I put the entrance to them outside most of my defences, use the (o)rders menu -> [W]orkshops to 1. no auto collect [w]ebs and 2. no auto [l]oom. I can't stop my hunters going down there, but I can stop my weavers. I then like to keep an eye on the caverns and periodically send soldiers down their for practice and clear up.

[WoobMonkey]

You can stop your hunters from heading to the caverns, by restricting them to a burro<w> that doesn't include the caverns.

[Kumis]

Must that be done on an individual basis? I don't really mind so much that they go down there, because they go down there to kill things, so it's never really been something I've tried hard to avoid.

[WoobMonkey]

Must that be done on an individual basis? I don't really mind so much that they go down there, because they go down there to kill things, so it's never really been something I've tried hard to avoid.

If there are only some specific dwarves you want restricted (your hunters, in this case), then yes, it's best to assign them to burrows individually.  If you don't want any dwarves in the caverns, it's easier to set a military alert to keep everyone in a non-cavern burrow.

[Steelconfused]

I have just breached my first cavern, and there seem to be some bat people hanging around. The unit list shows them hostile, but they did not move until now. The wiki information is a bit sparse.
Do I need to fear of them suddenly going berserk through my fortress, or will they wait there unless disturbed?

And while I am at it: I have two exits from the cavern: One directly to the main stairwell, only reachable to fliers, and the other through a trapped tunnel. Do I need to fear fliers? (like bat man...)

[Aslandus]

I have just breached my first cavern, and there seem to be some bat people hanging around. The unit list shows them hostile, but they did not move until now. The wiki information is a bit sparse.
Do I need to fear of them suddenly going berserk through my fortress, or will they wait there unless disturbed?

And while I am at it: I have two exits from the cavern: One directly to the main stairwell, only reachable to fliers, and the other through a trapped tunnel. Do I need to fear fliers? (like bat man...)

Forgotten beasts can spawn with wings, in which case they will fly directly into your stairway and proceed to eat all your civilians, but in my experience they will path to the nearest dwarf/tamed animal. If you don't need your dwarves to use it for something (for example, a well) you should wall it off just to be safe

[WoobMonkey]

FBs are also [TRAP_AVOID] creatures; your trap tunnel won't help you without the aid of a web-producer on hand to sticky up your traps.  And yes, if there's a way, fliers will eventually end up in your main shaft.