Social behavior and vocalization of two cryptic bat species
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| Year of publication | 2010 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Fenology of vocalization and swarming behaviour were studied using bat detector in the only known winter roost in the ruins of Nový Hrádek (NP Podyjí, CZ) castle where Pipistrellus pipistrellus and P. pygmaeus hibernate in species-mixed clusters. Bats were also netted to check sex ratio and age structure of their populations. During winter censuses number of hibernating bats and proportion of banded individuals were monitored. Most of hibernating bats were caught in spring 2010 to find relative species proportion. Study was focused on i) if both species could mate in the vicinity of hibernaculum and ii) if vocalizing males of both species share same time and space during advertisement behaviour. The highest social and echolocation activity were found between second half of August and half of September. Peak of social activity moved from the second third to the first third of night. We did not find nor time nor space species segregation during advertisement behaviour. Numbers of banded bats were similar during all winter checks (usualy 10% of all hibernating bats). Higher proportion of P. pygmaeus in hibernaculum (40.4%) than observed that in acoustic recordings (18.2%) or in netted bats (5.2%) shows different mating strategies between both pipistrelle species. Males of P. pipistrellus vocalized close to the hibernacula, while males of P. pygmaeus probably defend their teritorries near nursery colonies. The study was supported by the grant No. 206/06/0954 of Science Foundation of the Czech Republic and the grant of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic No. MSM0021622416. |
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