Hiding behaviour of bats in sandstone mines of North-Eastern Ukraine
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17161/eurojecol.v9i2.19631Keywords:
bats, winter aggregation, Plecotus auritus, Myotis daubentonii, Myotis brandtii, Myotis dasycneme, photo-trapAbstract
Winter counting of bats in hibernacula is one of the main methods of estimating their population trends in Europe. However, it is not always possible for humans to identify and count all bats in the maze of big karstic caves or abandoned mines. Previously we notice a significant fluctuation in the numbers of bat species and individuals in sandstone mines located in the Kharkiv region (NE Ukraine), and hypothesized that a significant undercount happened due to the hiding of bats in deep crevices of sandstone. Here using a camera trap placed inside a mine (September 17-19, 2017) we tested this hypothesis. Firstly we identified significant levels of bat flight activity where no roosting bats had been observed through conventional visual survey methods. The proportion of identified bats (Myotis group and Plecotus auritus) on footage was similar to that obtained by usual winter counts. Finally, we filmed and documented cases of crawling bats inside the deep crevices in the wall depths. We ventured to make an extrapolation of bat numbers in a mine on the basis of autumn-spring mist-netting data, and our evidence that they do hide in crevices. Our observations clearly demonstrate that hiding bat behaviour in mines might result in an underestimation of the real number of hibernating bats in sand-stone mines.
References
Battersby, J. (comp.) (2010). Guidelines for surveillance and monitoring of European bats. Bonn: EUROBATS Publication Series No 5. UNEP / EUROBATS Secretariat.
Blažek, J., Zukal, J., Bandouchova, H., Berková, H., Kovacova, V., et al. (2019) Numerous cold arousals and rare arousal cascades as a hibernation strategy in European Myotis bats. Journal of thermal biology, 82, 150–156. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtherbio.2019.04.002
Gaisler, J. & Chytil, J. (2002) Mark-recapture results and changes in bat abundance at the cave of Na Turoldu, Czech Republic. Folia Zoologica, 51, 1–10.
Guidelines for the implementation of Resolution No. 4. (2000) EUROBATS.AC5.Report.Annex3, 5th Meeting of the Advisory Committee Zagreb, Croatia, 21 – 23 February 2000, Retrieved from https://www.eurobats.org/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Advisory_Committee/AC5_EUROBATS_Report_Annex3.pdf
Haarsma, A. & Kaal, R. (2016) Predation of wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) on hibernating bats. Population Ecology, 58, 567–576. doi.org/10.1007/s10144-016-0557-y
Il’in, V.Yu. (1994) Bat wintering on the South of Forest-steppe natural zone of Right-bank Volga region. In: Il’in, V.Yu., (Ed.), Inter-Universities book of scientific works. “Fauna and ecology of animals” (pp. 3–21). Penza: Penza State Pedagogical University Press [In Russian].
Krivek, G., Mahecha, E., Meier, F., Kerth, G., van Schaik, J. (2023) Counting in the dark: estimating population size and trends of bat assemblages at hibernacula using infrared light barriers. Animal Conservation. doi:10.1111/acv.12856
Strelkov, P. (1958) Contribution to bat hibernations in European part of USSR. Trudy Zoologicheskogo Instituta AN SSSR, 25, 255–303 [In Russian].
Strelkov, P. (1971) Ecological attendance for bat hibernation (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) in Leningrad region. Annals of the Zoological Institute of Academy of Science of USSR, 48, 251–302 [In Russian].
Van der Meij, T., Van Strien, A., Haysom, K., Dekker, J., Russ, J., et al. (2014) Return of the bats? A prototype indicator of trends in European bat populations in underground hibernacula. Mammalian Biology, 80, 170–177. doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2014.09.004
Vlaschenko, A. & Naglov, A. (2006) Bats (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) hibernation in artificial caves of north-eastern Ukraine. Journal of V. N. Karazin National University. Series: biology, 3 (729), 122–133 [In Russian with English summary].
Vlaschenko, A. & Naglov, A. (2018) Results of the 10-Year Monitoring of Bat (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) Winter Aggregation from the North-Eastern Ukraine (Liptsy Mines, Kharkiv Region). Vestnik Zoologii, 52(5), 395–416. doi.org/10.2478/vzoo-2018-0042
Vlaschenko, A., Hukov, V., Naglov, A., Prylutska, A., Kravchenko, K., et al. (2016) Contribution to ecology of Brandt’s Bat Myotis brandtii (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae), in the North-eastern Ukraine: comparison of local summer and winter bat assemblages. Vestnik Zoologii, 50(3), 231–240. doi.org/10.1515/vzoo-2016-0027
Węgiel, A., Grzywiński, W., Kosicki, J., Tryjanowski, P., Nowak J., et al. (2021) Long-term population trends of Rhinolophus hipposideros and Myotis myotis in Poland, The European Zoological Journal, 88(1), 1189–1200. doi.org/10.1080/24750263.2021.2006324
Whiting, J., Doering, B., Aho, K. (2022) Can acoustic recordings of cave-exiting bats in winter estimate bat abundance in hibernacula? Ecological Indicators, 137, 108755. doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2022.108755.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Anton Vlaschenko

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright in their articles.
Articles in the European Journal of Ecology published 2020 and after are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
Articles in the European Journal of Ecology published 2015-2019 are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 license.