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Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774)

In temperate regions, winter is characterized by cold temperatures and low food availability. Heterothermic animals can bridge this period by entering a state of torpor characterized by decreased body temperature and reduced metabolic rate. Hibernation site choice is crucial since temperature condit...

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Autores principales: De Bruyn, Luc, Gyselings, Ralf, Kirkpatrick, Lucinda, Rachwald, Alek, Apoznański, Grzegorz, Kokurewicz, Tomasz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7809113/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33446821
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80720-4
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author De Bruyn, Luc
Gyselings, Ralf
Kirkpatrick, Lucinda
Rachwald, Alek
Apoznański, Grzegorz
Kokurewicz, Tomasz
author_facet De Bruyn, Luc
Gyselings, Ralf
Kirkpatrick, Lucinda
Rachwald, Alek
Apoznański, Grzegorz
Kokurewicz, Tomasz
author_sort De Bruyn, Luc
collection PubMed
description In temperate regions, winter is characterized by cold temperatures and low food availability. Heterothermic animals can bridge this period by entering a state of torpor characterized by decreased body temperature and reduced metabolic rate. Hibernation site choice is crucial since temperature conditions in the hibernaculum will impact torpor. We analysed temperature-dependent hibernation site use of Barbastella barbastellus. Bats and temperature were monitored in an underground system (1999–2019) and standalone bunkers (2007–2019) in Western Poland. During the winter of 2017–2018 we analysed the thermal variability of the hibernacula. Seasonal variation is higher in bunkers and thus temperatures get colder in winter than in the underground system. On the other hand, short-term variability (thermal variability index) in the bunkers was lower than in the underground system. This makes bunkers a more stable environment to hibernate for cold dwelling bats in warm winters, when temperatures in the bunkers do not get below freezing. Bats use both the warm underground system and the colder bunkers. During the last decade, a continuous series of warm winters occurred and the population of barbastelle bats partly moved from the underground system to the bunkers. These present temperature increases broadened the range of potential hibernation sites for barbastelles. Our study indicates that long-term trends, seasonal variation and short-term variability in temperatures are all important and should be analysed to investigate hibernaculum use by bats. Our study shows that small hibernation sites may become more important in the future.
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spelling pubmed-78091132021-01-15 Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774) De Bruyn, Luc Gyselings, Ralf Kirkpatrick, Lucinda Rachwald, Alek Apoznański, Grzegorz Kokurewicz, Tomasz Sci Rep Article In temperate regions, winter is characterized by cold temperatures and low food availability. Heterothermic animals can bridge this period by entering a state of torpor characterized by decreased body temperature and reduced metabolic rate. Hibernation site choice is crucial since temperature conditions in the hibernaculum will impact torpor. We analysed temperature-dependent hibernation site use of Barbastella barbastellus. Bats and temperature were monitored in an underground system (1999–2019) and standalone bunkers (2007–2019) in Western Poland. During the winter of 2017–2018 we analysed the thermal variability of the hibernacula. Seasonal variation is higher in bunkers and thus temperatures get colder in winter than in the underground system. On the other hand, short-term variability (thermal variability index) in the bunkers was lower than in the underground system. This makes bunkers a more stable environment to hibernate for cold dwelling bats in warm winters, when temperatures in the bunkers do not get below freezing. Bats use both the warm underground system and the colder bunkers. During the last decade, a continuous series of warm winters occurred and the population of barbastelle bats partly moved from the underground system to the bunkers. These present temperature increases broadened the range of potential hibernation sites for barbastelles. Our study indicates that long-term trends, seasonal variation and short-term variability in temperatures are all important and should be analysed to investigate hibernaculum use by bats. Our study shows that small hibernation sites may become more important in the future. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-01-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7809113/ /pubmed/33446821 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80720-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
De Bruyn, Luc
Gyselings, Ralf
Kirkpatrick, Lucinda
Rachwald, Alek
Apoznański, Grzegorz
Kokurewicz, Tomasz
Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774)
title Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774)
title_full Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774)
title_fullStr Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774)
title_full_unstemmed Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774)
title_short Temperature driven hibernation site use in the Western barbastelle Barbastella barbastellus (Schreber, 1774)
title_sort temperature driven hibernation site use in the western barbastelle barbastella barbastellus (schreber, 1774)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7809113/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33446821
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-80720-4
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