Abstract
We analysed and compared the structure and parameters of the songflight calls of expansive Pipistrellus kuhlii and Pipistrellus lepidus, that recently colonized Central Europe from the south and east, respectively. Bat calls were recorded mainly in urban areas of Central Europe and the Balkans, including a narrow zone of these species' recent parapatric or sympatric occurrence (around the Carpathians and the eastern part of the Pannonian Basin). The newly described songflight calls of P. lepidus consist of more elements (median 6), are longer (mean 56.4 ms) and of a higher frequency of maximum energy (mean 25.7 kHz) than those of P. kuhlii (median 3, mean 41.0 ms and mean 14.0 kHz, respectively). This finding provides new evidence that P. lepidus represents a different species, in accordance with results from previous genetic and morphological studies. Reported differences in songflight calls permit the acoustic discrimination of P. kuhlii and P. lepidus, which is not possible based on overlapping parameters of their echolocation calls. Our findings enable distributional and ecological studies of these two species, based on acoustic methods, in the context of their rapid European expansion and the local co-occurrence.
Highlights
Males of pipistrelle bats emit distinct songflight calls that are used during chases to repel other foraging individuals
The songflight calls of both species were simple in structure, containing several uniform components of the same frequency: 1-5 frequency modulated (FM) notes in P. kuhlii, and 3-12 in P. lepidus (Table 1, Fig. 2A, B)
All frequency parameters were significantly higher in P. lepidus, with the most obvious difference in the mean frequency of maximum energy of a sequence: P. lepidus 25.7 ± 3.42 kHz, P. kuhlii 14.0 ± 1.01 kHz (Table 1, Fig. 3A-C)
Summary
Males of pipistrelle bats emit distinct songflight calls (advertisement, mating or agonistic calls, representing one type of social calls, referred as type D) that are used during chases to repel other foraging individuals. Different songflight calls of P. kuhlii and P. lepidus and from the east of Europe and the Middle East (hereafter Pipistrellus lepidus) may be treated as distinct phylogeographic and morphological species of allopatric origin (Mayer et al 2007, Dietz & Kiefer 2016, Sachanowicz et al 2017). In recent decades, both species have spread northwards, P. kuhlii from the Balkans and P. lepidus from Russia and Ukraine, and their ranges have become parapatric in parts of Central Europe, where both co-occur locally (Strelkov et al 1985, Strelkov & Iljin 1990, Sachanowicz et al 2006, 2017, Danko 2007). Adaptation to urban areas, prevalent in Europe, appears to be one of the main factors enabling their expansion, which has been observed in other synanthropic bat species, such as Hypsugo savii (Uhrin et al 2016), and some bird species, such as Streptopelia decaocto (Kasparek 1996)
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