Acoustic monitoring reveals spatiotemporal occurrence of Nathusius' pipistrelle at the southern North Sea during autumn migration ...

• Main Authors: Lagerveld, Sander, Wilkes, Tony, Van Puijenbroek, Marinka E. B., Noort, Bart C. A., Geelhoed, Steve C. V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2023
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Pipistrellus nathusii
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13451626; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13451626

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Abstract Seasonal movements between the summer and winter areas are a widespread phenomenon in bats So far, most information on the migration ecology of bats has been obtained by studies in terrestrial habitats, whereas scientific knowledge on migration over sea is scarce. We performed continuous ultrasonic acoustic monitoring at 13 locations in the southern North Sea during four consecutive years (2017–2020) and analysed the spatiotemporal occurrence of Nathusius' pipistrelle Pipistrellus nathusii during autumn migration in relation to weather parameters and lunar phase. Our analysis showed that the main autumn migration of Nathusius' pipistrelle at the southern North Sea occurs from mid-August until late October and most bats within the study area occur off the Noord Holland coast. North Sea crossings frequently last longer than one night; the day is spent roosting at an offshore structure. The strongest migration occurs during nights with tailwinds from ...