Abstract
Natural and anthropogenic disturbances can strongly impact population dynamics of species and are often responsible for zoonotic emerging infectious diseases. However, long-term studies on the demographic consequences of human disturbances are unusual. We used 6 years (1995–2000) of mark-recapture data to investigate how climatic conditions, human disturbance and density affect sex- and age-specific apparent survival probabilities of the pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus pipistrellus, Schreber 1774) in a maternity colony. Our study demonstrated that density played an important role in population dynamics of pipistrelle bat and that its effect differed with respect to age and sex. Notably, human disturbance caused a strong decline of adult female survival, suggesting that perturbations have important consequences in bat-colony dynamics. Juvenile female survival was negatively influenced by density, being considerably lower in high densities. In contrast, juvenile and adult males were apparently not affected as they had constant survival probabilities. Although climatic factors can markedly affect population dynamics of temperate insectivorous bats, in this study, the weather conditions did not influence the survival rates of pipistrelle bats. We provide the first report that demonstrates the density-dependent effect on bat survival. That is especially relevant to better understanding of the bat-population dynamics and to evaluate the consequences of human disturbance and their potential changes in the maternity colony structure.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams R (1996) Onset of volancy and foraging patterns of juvenile little brown bats, Myotis lucifugus. J Mammal 78:239–246
Anthony EL, Stack MH, Kunz TH (1981) Night roosting and the nocturnal time budgets of the little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus: effects of reproductive status, prey density, and environmental conditions. Oecologia 51:151–156
Armstrong DP, Davidson RS, Perrott JK, Roygard J, Buchanan L (2005) Density-dependent population growth in a reintroduced population of North Island saddlebacks. J Anim Ecol 74:160–170
Barbraud C, Weimerskirch H (2003) Climate and density shape population dynamics of a marine top predator. Proc R Soc B 270:2111–2116
Bradley CA, Altizer S (2006) Urbanization and the ecology of wildlife diseases. Trends Ecol Evol 22:95–102
Budenz T, Heib S, Kusch J (2009) Functions of bat social calls: the influence of local abundance, interspecific interactions and season on the production of pipistrelle (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) type D social calls. Acta Chiropterol 11:173–182
Burnham KP, Anderson DR (2002) Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information–theoretic approach, 2nd edn. Springer, New York
Burnham KP, Anderson DR, White GC, Brownie C, Pollock KH (1987) Design and analysis methods for fish survival experiments based on release–recapture. Am Fish Soc Monogr 5:1–437
Calisher CH, Childs JE, Field HE, Holmes KV, Schountz T (2006) Bats: important reservoir hosts of emerging viruses. Clin Microbiol Rev 19:531–545
Clutton-Brock TH, Major M, Albon SD, Guinness FE (1987) Early development and population dynamics in red deer. I. Density-dependent effects on juvenile survival. J Anim Ecol 56:53–64
Coulson T, Catchpole EA, Albon SD, Morgan BJ, Pemberton JM, Clutton-Brock TH, Crawley MJ, Grenfell BT (2001) Age, sex, density, winter weather, and population crashes in Soay sheep. Science 292:1528–1531
Coulson T, Guinness F, Pemberton J, Clutton-Brock TH (2004) The demographic consequences of releasing a population of red deer from culling. Ecology 85:411–422
Ellison L, O’Shea T, Neubaum D, Bowen R (2007) Factors influencing movement probabilities of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) in buildings. Ecol Appl 17:620–627
Encarnação JA, Becker NI, Ekschmitt K (2010) When do Daubenton’s bat (Myotis daubentonii) fly far for dinner? Can J Zool 88:1192–1201
Frick WF, Reynolds DS, Kunz T (2010) Influence of climate and reproductive timing on demography of little brown myotis Myotis lucifugus. J Anim Ecol 79:128–136
Gerell R, Lundberg K (1990) Sexual differences in survival rates of adult pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) in South Sweden. Oecologia 83:401–404
Grosbois V, Gimenez O, Gaillard JM, Pradel R, Barbraud C, Clobert J, Møller AP, Weimerskirch H (2008) Assessing the impact of climate variation on survival in vertebrate populations. Biol Rev 83:357–399
Hoyle SD, Pople AR, Toop GJ (2001) Mark–recapture may reveal more about ecology than about population trends: demography of a threatened ghost bat (Macroderma gigas) population. Aust Ecol 26:80–92
Hutterer R, Ivanova T, Meyer-Cords C, Rodrigues L (2005) Bat migrations in Europe. A review of banding data and literature. Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, Bonn
Jenkins EV, Laine T, Morgan SE, Cole KR, Speakman JR (1998) Roost selection in the pipistrelle bat, Pipistrellus pipistrellus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae), in northeast Scotland. Anim Behav 56:909–917
Jones G, Jacobs DS, Kunz T, Willig MR, Racey PA (2009) Carpe noctem: the importance of bats as bioindicatorssa. Endanger Species Res 8:93–115
Kerth G, Mayer F, Petit E (2002) Extreme sex-biased dispersal in the communally breeding, nonmigratory Bechstein’s bat (Myotis bechsteinii). Mol Ecol 11:1491–1498
Lebreton JD, Burnham KP, Clobert J, Anderson DR (1992) Modeling survival and testing biological hypotheses using marked animals: case studies and recent advances. Ecol Monogr 62:67–118
Leirs H, Stenseth NC, Nichols JD, Hines JE, Verhagen R, Verheyen W (1997) Stochastic seasonality and nonlinear density-dependent factors regulate population size in an African rodent. Nature 389:176–180
Lettink M, Armstrong DP (2003) An introduction to using mark recapture analysis for monitoring threatened species. Department of Conservation Technical Series 28A: 5–32 (http://www.doc.govt.nz/Documents/science-and-technical/docts28a.pdf)
Łupicki D, Cichocki J, Szkudlarek R, Wazna A (2010) Cannibalism in maternity colonies of the greater mouse-eared bat Myotis myotis. Mammalia 74:339–341
Murdoch WW (1994) Population regulation in theory and practice. Ecology 75:271–287
Newton I (1992) Experiments on the limitation of bird numbers by territorial behaviour. Biol Rev 67:129–173
Newton I (1998) Population limitation in birds. Academic Press, London
Nicoll MA, Jones C, Norris K (2003) Declining survival rates in a reintroduced population of the Mauritius kestrel: evidence for non-linear density dependence and environmental stochasticity. J Anim Ecol 72:917–926
O’Donnell CFJ (2002) Timing of breeding, productivity and survival of long-tailed bats Chalinolobus tuberculatus (Chiroptera: Veaspertilionidae) in cold-temperate rainforest in New Zealand. J Zool 257:311–323
O’Shea TJ, Ellison LE, Stanley TR (2004) Survival estimation in bats: historical overview, critical appraisal, and suggestions for new approaches. In: Thompson WL (ed) Sampling rare and elusive species: concepts, designs, and techniques for estimating population parameters. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 297–336
Papadatou E, Butlin RK, Pradel R, Altringham JD (2009) Sex-specific roost movements and population dynamics of the vulnerable long-fingered bat, Myotis capacinii. Biol Conserv 142:280–289
Papadatou E, Ibáñez C, Pradel R, Juste J, Gimenez O (2010) Assessing survival in a multi-population system: a case study on bat populations. Oecologia 165:925–933
Plowright RK, Sokolow SH, Gorman ME, Daszak P, Foley JE (2008) Causal inference in disease ecology: investigating ecological drivers of disease emergence. Front Ecol Environ 6:420–429
Pryde MA, O’Donnell CFJ, Barker RJ (2005) Factors influencing survival and long-term population viability of New Zealand long-tailed bats (Chalinolobus tuberculatus): implications for conservation. Biol Conserv 126:175–185
Racey PA (1974) Ageing and assessment of reproductive status of pipistrelle bats, Pipistrellus pipistrellus. J Zool 173:264–271
Racey PA, Swift SM (1985) Feeding ecology of Pipistrellus pipistrellus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) during pregnancy and lactation. I. Foraging behaviour. J Anim Ecol 54:205–215
Ray C, Hastings A (1996) Density dependence: are we searching at the wrong spatial scale? J Anim Ecol 65:556–566
Rydell J (1986) Feeding territoriality in female northern bats, Eptesicus nilsonii. Ethology 72:329–337
Saether BE (1997) Environmental stochasticity and population dynamics of large herbivores: a search for mechanisms. Trends Ecol Evol 12:143–149
Schorcht W, Bontadina F, Schaub M (2009) Variation of adult survival drives population dynamics in a migrating forest bat. J Anim Ecol 78:1182–1190
Sendor T, Simon M (2003) Population dynamics of the pipistrelle bat: effects of sex, age and winter weather on seasonal survival. J Anim Ecol 72:308–320
Serra-Cobo J, López-Roig M, Bayer X, Amengual-Pieras B, Guasch F (2009) The bats: science and myth. Publications and Editions of Barcelona University, Barcelona
Sinclair AR (1989) Population regulation in animals. In: Cherrett JM, Bradshaw AD (eds) Ecological concepts: the contribution of ecology to an understanding of the natural world. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, pp 197–241
Speakman JR, Racey PA (1989) Hibernal ecology of the pipistrelle bat: energy expenditure, water requirements and mass loss, implications for survival and the function of winter emergence flights. J Anim Ecol 58:797–813
Speakman JR, Rowland A (1999) Preparing for inactivity: how insectivorous bats deposit a fat store for hibernation. Proc Nutr Soc 58:123–131
Speakman JR, Racey PA, Catto CM, Webb PI, Swift SM, Burnett AM (1991) Minimum summer populations and densities of bats in N.E. Scotland, near the northern borders of their distributions. J Zool 225:327–345
Thompson MJ (1987) Longevity and survival of female pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) on the Vale of York, England. J Zool 211:209–214
White GC, Burnham KP (1999) Program MARK: survival estimation from populations of marked animals. Bird Study 46 (Suppl):120–139
Willis CK, Brigham RM (2007) Social thermoregulation exerts more influence than microclimate on forest roost preferences by a cavity-dwelling bat. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 62:97–108
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Nostra Senyora Maria del Remei School and its administrator for allowing us to conduct research on its property. Special thanks to all the researchers and volunteers who helped with fieldwork over the last 6 years. We also thank the Departament de Medi Ambient (Generalitat de Catalunya) for providing weather data and the permit to capture and band bats.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
López-Roig, M., Serra-Cobo, J. Impact of human disturbance, density, and environmental conditions on the survival probabilities of pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus pipistrellus). Popul Ecol 56, 471–480 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-014-0437-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10144-014-0437-2