Foraging habitat preferences of bats in relation to food supply and spatial vegetation structures in a western European low mountain range forest

Title:

Foraging habitat preferences of bats in relation to food supply and spatial vegetation structures in a western European low mountain range forest

Creator:

Kusch, Jürgen, Weber, Claudia, Idelberger, Sylvia, and Koob, Tobias

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:44f9d30d-5b1d-a12c-6ccc-704786a16c2d
uuid:44f9d30d-5b1d-a12c-6ccc-704786a16c2d

Subject:

abundance, bat distribution, echolocation, habitat use, and prey

Type:

article and TEXT

Description:

The habitat choice of foraging bats depends on the local food supply as well as on vegetation structures that may enable the animals to orientate by echolocation. We examined the associations of bats with different types of landscape elements. Effects of the local insect occurrence, of the canopy structure and of linear vegetation elements on the presence of bats were compared. Bat activity increased with the insect abundance (p = 0.025). Furthermore, regression analysis revealed that bat activity was positively correlated (p = 0.004) with the relative area of open canopy type (clearances, still waters), and vise versa was negatively associated with the area of closed canopy (p = 0.0005). Bat species that predominantly forage in different vertical strata (above or below the canopy), differed in the activity at the various habitat types. Pipistrelle bats and Myotis species favoured open canopy areas (p = 0.007; p= 0.029), whereas Nyctalus species were not significantly more active at this patch type, compared to closed canopy areas (p = 0.0712). Linear characteristics of the vegetation (edges, paths) in general did not regulate the local preferences of bats (p = 0.154), but they corresponded to bat activity in complex structured areas (e.g. clearances with trees; p = 0.008).

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Source:

Folia zoologica | 2004 Volume:53 | Number:2

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false