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Patterns of survival and roost switching in an A frican insectivorous bat
Author(s) -
Monadjem A.,
McCleery R. A.,
Collier B.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of zoology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.915
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1469-7998
pISSN - 0952-8369
DOI - 10.1111/jzo.12210
Subject(s) - biology , biological dispersal , insectivore , population , juvenile , ecology , population decline , demography , temperate climate , habitat , sociology
Variation in survival over time and among age and sex classes drives population dynamics for a large majority of long‐lived species and is critical to understanding species demography. For highly mobile species that actively move among potential breeding locations, coupling survival information with estimates of locational fidelity provides the basis for our understanding of species population dynamics. We studied the effect of time, age and sex class and climatic variables on survival and roost transition probabilities on a population of E gyptian slit‐faced bats in S waziland from 1450 marked individuals from 16 roosts over a 10‐year period. We then used variance components analysis to estimate average annual survival and associated temporal process variance. Annual apparent survival varied with sex and age, being highest in adult males and lowest in juvenile females. We did not find evidence of survival being influenced by climatological factors as commonly observed in temperate bats. Roost switching occurred frequently, with more transitions to roosts harboring larger number of bats. Furthermore, the probability of transitioning to another roost was related to its distance from the original roost. The dispersal patterns revealed in this study were consistent with the fission–fusion dynamics common for colonial bats.