The risk faced by the early bat: individual plasticity and mortality costs of the timing of spring departure after hibernation ...

• Main Authors: Reusch, Christine, Scheuerlein, Alexander, Grosche, Leo, Meier, Frauke, Gampe, Jutta, Dammhahn, Melanie, Van Schaik, Jaap, Kerth, Gerald
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Myotis nattereri
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13433394; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13433394

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Hibernation is a widespread adaptation in animals to seasonally changing environmental conditions. In the face of global anthropogenic change, information about plastic adjustments to environmental conditions and associated mortality costs are urgently needed to assess population persistence of hibernating species. Here, we used a five‐year data set of 1047 RFID‐tagged individuals from two bat species, Myotis nattereri and Myotis daubentonii that were automatically recorded each time they entered or left a hibernaculum. Because the two species differ in foraging strategy and activity pattern during winter, we expected species–specific responses in the timing of hibernation relative to environmental conditions, as well as different mortality costs of early departure from the hibernaculum in spring. Applying mixed‐effects modelling, we disentangled population‐level and individual‐level plasticity in the timing of departure. To estimate mortality costs of early ...