Field experiment reveals that female Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii) select bat boxes based on the space available for roosting.

IF 2.3 2区 环境科学与生态学 Q2 ECOLOGY
Christina Willemsens, Gerald Kerth, Jesús R Hernández-Montero
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Abstract

Roosts are a crucial resource for bats, which choose them based on many factors, including the surrounding habitat, microclimate, and space available for communal roosting. The latter is important because many bat species benefit from social thermoregulation by forming colonies in their roosts. However, it remains unclear whether bats can base their roost choice directly on the space available for roosting when other characteristics, such as roost microclimate do not vary. We present results from a field experiment in which RFID-tagged Bechstein's bats (Myotis bechsteinii) in a maternity colony were given paired bat boxes with identical external dimensions but differing internal roosting space. This allowed us to control for other factors that might influence roost choice and to record the bats' nightly visits to the boxes prior to their occupation as day roosts. To assess whether roost temperature influenced roost choice in our setup, we measured the internal temperature of the boxes. Female Bechstein's bats showed a clear preference for boxes with more roosting space, as evidenced by a higher frequency of nightly visits and more frequent use as day roosts. As there was no significant difference in temperature between boxes with different internal volumes, roost temperature cannot explain the bats' preference for spacious roosts in our experiment. Our data provide evidence that bats can directly assess the volume of their roosts. Our results are consistent with the argument that small volume roosts may limit roosting group size potentially reducing social thermoregulation benefits.

野外实验表明,雌贝希斯坦蝙蝠(Myotis bechsteinii)根据可栖息的空间选择蝙蝠箱。
栖息地是蝙蝠的重要资源,它们根据许多因素选择栖息地,包括周围的栖息地、小气候和可供公共栖息的空间。后者很重要,因为许多蝙蝠物种通过在其栖息地形成殖民地而受益于社会体温调节。然而,尚不清楚当其他特征(如栖息地小气候)不变时,蝙蝠是否可以直接根据可栖息的空间来选择栖息地。我们介绍了一项野外实验的结果,在该实验中,在一个母性群体中,使用rfid标记的贝希斯坦蝙蝠(Myotis bechsteinii)给予具有相同外部尺寸但内部栖息空间不同的成对蝙蝠箱。这使我们能够控制可能影响栖息地选择的其他因素,并记录蝙蝠在白天栖息之前夜间对盒子的访问。为了评估巢温是否影响我们设置中的巢选择,我们测量了盒子的内部温度。雌性贝希斯坦蝙蝠对栖息空间更大的盒子表现出明显的偏好,这可以从夜间访问频率更高和白天更频繁地用作栖息空间来证明。由于不同内部容积的箱体之间温度没有显著差异,因此在我们的实验中,栖息地温度不能解释蝙蝠对宽敞栖息地的偏好。我们的数据提供的证据表明,蝙蝠可以直接评估其栖息地的体积。我们的研究结果与小体积栖息地可能限制栖息群体规模的观点一致,这可能会降低社会体温调节的效益。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Oecologia
Oecologia 环境科学-生态学
CiteScore
5.10
自引率
0.00%
发文量
192
审稿时长
5.3 months
期刊介绍: Oecologia publishes innovative ecological research of international interest. We seek reviews, advances in methodology, and original contributions, emphasizing the following areas: Population ecology, Plant-microbe-animal interactions, Ecosystem ecology, Community ecology, Global change ecology, Conservation ecology, Behavioral ecology and Physiological Ecology. In general, studies that are purely descriptive, mathematical, documentary, and/or natural history will not be considered.
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