Foraging habitats of bats in southern Finland

Abstract

We determined the foraging habitats of the northern batEptesicus nilssonii (Keyserling et Blasius, 1839), Brandt’s batMyotis brandtii (Eversmann, 1845), whiskered batMyotis mystacinus (Kuhl, 1819), Daubenton’s batMyotis daubentonii (Kuhl, 1819) and brown long-eared batPlecotus auritus (Linnaeus, 1758) in southern Finland. Among these species, we compared the diversities of foraging habitats, linear feature preference and the bats’ tendencies to forage simultaneously.Eptesicus nilssonii was the most opportunistic, foraging in a wide range of habitats.Myotis daubentonii (94%) foraged mainly on water habitats, whileM. brandtii/mystacinus (89%) andP. auritus (66%) foraged mainly in forest habitats. The diversities of foraging habitats used byE. nilssonii andP. auritus were higher than those ofM. brandtii/mystacinus andM. daubentonii. Both E.nilssonii andP. auritus foraged mostly alone or in small numbers, whileM. brandtii/mystacinus tended to gather in large numbers to forage in the same habitat. Half ofE. nilssonii and 46% ofM. daubentonii foraged over linear features, while other species did not use linear features to such an extent. Management and conservation of foraging habitats are needed especially forM. brandtii/mystacinus andM. daubentonii, which are more specialized thanE. nilssonii and P. auritus.