Influence of climate change on behaviour and demography of Myotis nattereri

• Main Author: Stapelfeldt, Bianca
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Klimaänderung; Wetter; Fledermäuse; ddc:590; Myotis nattereri
• Online Access: https://epub.ub.uni-greifswald.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/7522; https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:9-opus-75227; https://epub.ub.uni-greifswald.de/files/7522/PhD_Thesis_Bianca_Stapelfeldt_UB.pdf

Bats are special: although they have a small body size, bats are extremely long-lived and have a low annual reproductive output, which puts them at the ‘slow’ end of the slow-fast continuum of mammalian life-histories. Species typically respond to climate change by genetic adaptation, range shifts or phenotypic plasticity. However, limited dispersal behavior in many bat species and long generation times make it very likely, that adaptive responses in bats are rather driven by phenotypic plasticity than by genetic adaptation or range shifts. Changing weather patterns, a higher frequency of extreme weather events and overall rising temperatures, caused by climate change, will impact phenology, energy supply and energy expenditure. In species where adult survival largely shapes population dynamics, it is thus of crucial importance to understand how climate change affects individual fitness and fitness relevant traits by altering behavior and development. In my study, I investigated how weather impacts behavior, fitness and fitness relevant traits in free ranging Natterer’s bats from two geographical regions (south vs. north) in Germany. In the Nature Park Nossentiner/Schwinzer Heide (northern region, NSH), long-term data for investigations on population dynamics are partially collected by hibernation counts. Although counting hibernating bats is a regularly applied method, it is still unclear to which degree human visits in the hibernaculum trigger energy consuming arousals and thus increase energy expenditure. Thus, I first investigated if hibernation counts potentially threaten winter survival by assessing the number of energy consuming arousals of hibernating Natterer’s bats (Myotis nattereri) and two other bat species (Pipistrellus spp., Plecotus auritus) using thermal imaging. Additionally, I used light barriers in the hibernacula to investigate the relative impact of winter temperatures and human visits on flight activity of hibernating bats. Secondly, I investigated effects on survival and reproduction ...