Sociality influences thermoregulation and roost switching in a forest bat using ephemeral roosts ...

• Main Authors: Russo, Danilo, Cistrone, Luca, Budinski, Ivana, Console, Giulia, Della Corte, Martina, Milighetti, Claudia, Di Salvo, Ivy, Nardone, Valentina, Brigham, R. Mark, Ancillotto, Leonardo
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2017
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Barbastella barbastellus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13429492; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13429492

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) In summer, many temperate bat species use daytime torpor, but breeding females do so less to avoid interferences with reproduction. In forest-­roosting bats, deep tree cavities buffer roost microclimate from abrupt temperature oscillations and facilitate thermoregulation. Forest bats also switch roosts frequently, so thermally suitable cavities may be limiting. We tested how barbastelle bats (Barbastella barbastellus), often roosting beneath flaking bark in snags, may thermoregulate successfully despite the unstable microclimate of their preferred cavities. We assessed thermoregulation patterns of bats roosting in trees in a beech forest of central Italy. Although all bats used torpor, females were more often normothermic. Cavities were poorly insulated, but social thermoregulation probably overcomes this problem. A model incorporating the presence of roost mates and group size explained thermoregulation patterns better than others based, respectively, on ...