Roosting behaviour of bat species in different seasons: to be single or not (#845)
Bats
spend their day and winter time in roosting site such as tree, hollows, cave or
human made structure to hibernate or retreat. Roosting preferences can be
different according to species. While some of them tend to be solitary, others
in colony which is consist of individuals from same or different bat species.
In this study, it was investigated to roosting behavior of different bat
species in 15 caves of Middle Sakarya Region, Turkey. In 2012-2013 period, each
cave was visited three times for spring, summer and winter seasons. Totally 10
bat species were detected in the caves. All of the species except Myotis emarginatus were roosted not only
singly but also in groups. M. emarginatus
was found only as a solitary. It was determined 70 groups for 9 species. Number
of individuals in the groups varied between 2 and 910. Ten of the all groups
were formed by mixed species. The percentage of the mixed groups according to colonies
in spring, summer and winter were 29,5%, 25% and 0% respectively. Roosts were
shared with minimum 2 maximum 3 species in mixed groups. M. blythii shared its roosting sitewith M. myotis and M. capaccini
separately. Also, Rhinolophus blasii
grouped with R. mehelyi. On the other
hand, M. myotis, M. blythii ve
Miniopterus schreibersii were detected in the same group.None of the individuals of the M. emarginatus, R. hipposideros, R. ferrimequinum
and R. euryale tended to colony with different species. All groups were formed
by conspesific in winter season, as well. Studies on the group formation of bat
species confirm our finding that individuals usually do not prefer to mixed
colony to hibernation. On the other hand, tendency to aggregate with different
species in spring and summer time can be due to the same habitat requirements
such as food. This
study was supported by a scientific research grant (1205F087) from Anadolu
University Research Fund.