Abstract
Competition has long been assumed to be a major driver in regulating ecological communities. Intra-specific competition is considered to be maximal as members of the same species use the same ecological niches in a similar way. Many species of animals exhibit great physiological, behavioral, and morphological differences between sexes (sexual dimorphism). Here we report an extreme geographical segregation between the sexes in the greater mouse-tailed bat (Rhinopoma microphyllum). To gain insight into the driving mechanisms of sexual segregation outside the mating season, we collected and integrated environmental, behavioral, physiological, and spatial information. We found that both sexes choose roosts with similar characteristics and the same food type, but use different habitats for different durations. Males forage around cliffs at higher and cooler elevations while females forage in lowlands around a river delta. We suggest that it is their different physiological and social needs, and not competition, that drives sexual segregation in this species.
Highlights
Intra-specific competition is considered to be the most intense form of competition, as individuals of the same species are both similar in their biology and use similar habitats in a similar fashion [1]
Females and juveniles began to leave their roosts from early September, and all summer roosts were abandoned by late October
On 17-Jul-2008 she returned to the females’ roost before sunrise and spent all the following days there until the end of the tracking period. We found that both male and female R. microphyllum aggregate, and display complete sexual segregation during the summer in Israel, using different roosting and foraging sites
Summary
Intra-specific competition is considered to be the most intense form of competition, as individuals of the same species are both similar in their biology and use similar habitats in a similar fashion [1]. The other suggests that various unique innate biological differences between the sexes (which may result from sexual selection, reproductive role, etc.) could cause them to prefer different niches [11,12] Such differences include hormone levels, lactation, water balance, exercise capacity, adipose to muscle tissue ratio, body size, sociality etc., which, in turn, may influence thermoregulation patterns [13], inclination to aggregation [14], or differences in geographic dispersal patterns between the sexes [15]. These differences should be more pronounced when mammalian females are gestating or lactating [16]
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