Low genetic variability of Rhinolophus mehelyi (Mehely's horseshoe bat) in Romania

Rhinolophus mehelyi (Mehely's horseshoe bat) is a vulnerable species with an increasingly fragmented distribution. In Romania, populations of R. mehelyi have experienced a dramatic decline over the past 50 years, and the current population size is estimated at only 100 adult individuals inhabiting almost exclusively the Limanu cave. In the present study, we investigated the genetic consequences of population decline for the viability of the remaining population of R. mehelyi in Romania. We sequenced and analyzed a 359-bp fragment of the mitochondrial control region from the only known Romanian population and compared it with two geographically close colonies from Bulgaria. A single haplotype was found in the Romanian population compared to 10 in the Bulgarian population, suggesting genetic isolation.This work was partially financed by the European Community through the Synthesys program (ES-TAF-121/2010).Peer reviewe

Fruit bats adjust their foraging strategies to urban environments to diversify their diet

Abstract Background Urbanization is one of the most influential processes on our globe, putting a great number of species under threat. Some species learn to cope with urbanization, and a few even benefit from it, but we are only starting to understand how they do so. In this study, we GPS tracked Egyptian fruit bats from urban and rural populations to compare their movement and foraging in urban and rural environments. Because fruit trees are distributed differently in these two environments, with a higher diversity in urban environments, we hypothesized that foraging strategies will differ too. Results When foraging in urban environments, bats were much more exploratory than when foraging in rural environments, visiting more sites per hour and switching foraging sites more often on consecutive nights. By doing so, bats foraging in settlements diversified their diet in comparison to rural bats, as was also evident from their choice to often switch fruit species. Interestingly, the location of the roost did not dictate the foraging grounds, and we found that many bats choose to roost in the countryside but nightly commute to and forage in urban environments. Conclusions Bats are unique among small mammals in their ability to move far rapidly. Our study is an excellent example of how animals adjust to environmental changes, and it shows how such mobile mammals might exploit the new urban fragmented environment that is taking over our landscape

dataset_traditional morphometric

Dataset including all traditional morphometric measures and ratios used for methods 1-3. The four residuals were used for method 3. The length measures were obtained from two wing pictures of the same individual and therefore the averaged measures are shown in the dataset. Similarly for calculating the ratios averaged length and area measures (not included in the dataset) were taken from two wing pictures per individual. Because the measurement error was low we only took measurements from one wing picture for individuals from 2014

dataset_geometric morphometric_raw coordinates

Dataset containing geometric morphometric raw coordinates and centroid size

Landmarks used to generate data for methods 3 and 4.

<p>All landmarks were used in the geometric morphometric approach (method 4). Arrows show the linear distances that were taken for method 3.</p

Between-group principal component analysis and average species shapes.

<p>Scatterplot of the scores along the first two between-group principal components. Overlaid, predicted shape changes along the first between-group principal component and average shape of each species. Points in the scatterplot are color-coded as the average shapes. In the plots of average species shape, the grand average shape is depicted in grey.</p

Length and area measurements taken for each analysed wing photograph.

<p>These measures were used for methods 1 and 2.</p

Experimental set-up for the mate choice experiment.

<p>Examples of spectrograms of low and high frequency echolocation calls played back are presented at the bottom of the figure.</p

Echolocation peak frequency is an honest signal in <i>Rhinolophus mehelyi</i>.

<p>Correlation between peak frequency and body condition for (A), males and, (B), females captured during the mating season.</p

Behavioural experiments of mate choice preference in <i>Rhinolophus mehelyi.</i>

<p>(A) Depicts that females (top, n = 61) made a choice more often compared to males (bottom, n = 15) when confronted with adult male calls with high or low frequency. (B) Indicates that when a bat reacted to the test, females (left, n = 49) preferred high frequency calls while males (right, n = 7) did not show any preference (see text for statistical results). For each boxplot, the box represents the 25^th quantile, median (thick black bar) and 75^th quantile. To showcase possible outliers, whiskers were shortened to a length of 0.1 times the interquartile range.</p