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We studied the impact of road E461, Brno-Vienna, on bat mortality, with the goal to predict this impact after the road has been reconstructed and turned into highway, R52. In the Czech territory, two proposed road sections of E461 were selected, 3.5 and 4.5 km long, and divided into segments 100 m in length. Bat carcasses were picked up from emergency stopping lanes, and bat activity was recorded by ultrasound detectors along the road and 100 m away on both sides from the central strip. From May to October 2007, 25 checks of bat mortality performed at weekly intervals revealed 119 bat carcasses representing 11 or 12 species.Pipistrellus nathusii, P. pygmaeus andMyotis daubentonii were the most frequent traffic casualties. The greatest mortality was documented from early July to mid-October, with a peak in September. Monitoring bat activity by ultrasound detectors (one night per month in May, June and September) yielded 12 bat species and 3 species couples (Myotis mystacinus/brandtii, M. emarginatus/alcathoe, Plecotus auritus/austriacus), mostly the same taxa as found dead on the road. Significantly greater bat numbers were revealed in the section where the road was situated between two artificial lakes, as compared to a road section without any lakes directly adjacent to the road. In the former section, significant correlation was found between the number of carcasses found and the activity detected, according to road segments.

Echolocation behaviour and the structure of calls of Pipistrellus pygmaeus and P. pipistrellus were studied using a time expansion bat detector. Echolocation signals were recorded in the field in south-eastern Moravia and northern Bohemia (Czech Republic) and in an ad hoc experimental laboratory. For each of the species, multivariate analyses of variance indicated significant differences in calls produced inside the experimental room and in the open. Paired T-test and MANOVA were also used to reveal influences of inter-individual contacts in each of the cryptic species on the spectral patterns of call variables. Differences were found in the spectral variables of echolocation calls of an individual flying in the room alone and in a group of conspecifics. The possibility that bats use their flexibility to avoid mutual disturbances of echolocation calls was tested. We found that bats flying in a group modify the parameters of their echolocation signals according to the presence of other individuals of the same species. These differences can indicate jamming avoidance and recognition of own echoes. However, they did not change the parameters if individuals of another species were present. Social calls are more numerous when bats fly in a species-mixed group than in a monospecific group.

The distribution of pipistrelles of the Pipistrellus pipistrellus complex (= P. pipistrellus s.l.) reaches only marginally the African continent. These bats are known only from a narrow belt of the Mediterranean zone in Maghreb and from NE Libya. We analysed museum specimens of African populations of P. pipistrellus s.l. using both morphologic and genetic techniques and compared them with Eurasian specimens of the complex. The African representatives of P. pipistrellus complex include two morphologically, genetically and geographically distinct populations. One of them inhabits the Mediterranean part of Cyrenaica, Libya. Belonging to the P. pygmaeus genetic lineage, these bats are represented by larger and more rusty coloured individuals with large massive rostrum and canines. In morphologic traits, this population differs significantly from all Western Palaearctic populations of the P. pipistrellus complex. These bats differ by about 6–7% in genetic distance from P. pygmaeus s. str. Within the P. pygmaeus lineage Libyan bats seem to be unique in their echolocation calls: the maximum energy of terminal frequencies was recorded at about 45 kHz. We consider the Libyan pipistrelles to represent a separate species, Pipistrellus hanaki sp. nov. Another distinct African pipistrelle population inhabits the Mediterranean parts of NW African countries, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. Individuals from the latter population are small and somewhat darker members of the P. pipistrellus genetic lineage, with relatively short and narrow mesial part of rostrum. Although both morphological and genetic differences between this population and Eurasian P. pipistrellus s. str. were found (genetic distance about 3–5%), they are probably not sufficient for the separation of this form at the specific level. However, the differences from European samples show rather not a cline character and therefore potential subspecific level of NW African P. pipistrellus has to be taken into consideration.

Capture-recapture data on common volesMicrotus arvalis (Pallas, 1779) in central Europe have been almost exclusively analysed by means of the enumeration technique (minimum number alive or calendar of catches). Here we compare enumeration and Jolly-Seber (JS) estimation of population size in the common vole using live-trapping data from an alfalfa field-population in southern Moravia, Czech Republic. Over the entire study the enumeration estimate of the population size was smaller by an average of 28% than the JS estimate. The negative bias increased with density, decreased with both capture probability and the survival rate, and was more pronounced in males at high density. We conclude that the method of direct enumeration is not reliable for estimating population size in the common vole.

Pipistrellus pipistrellus, Eptesicus serotinus, Nyctalus noctula, N. leisleri, Myotis daubentonii, M. myotis, unidentified small Myotis spp. and Plecotus spp. were recorded during bat detector transects within a central European city of 350,000 inhabitants. Bats were recorded in all seven habitat types under study, the levels of activity for each species and habitat type were significantly different. The relative activity of the whole bat community was highest in old outskirts (low density housing) and at the river, and lowest in the city centre and new housing estates (high density housing). Significant differences were found in the timing of bat activity during the night and the season. Within the first two hours after sunset, relative activity of P. pipistrellus and E. serotinus was highest in the first 0.5 h and decreased thereafter. In N. noctula, it was highest during the second and third 0.5 h and in Myotis spp. it was low in the first 0.5 h and increased till the end of monitoring. Flying bats were recorded from March till October; the lunar cycle had no significant effect on the amount of flight activity. The relative activity of E. serotinus was positively correlated with temperature. No significant correlation was found between the activity of bats and the number of trees and streetlamps per transect. Comparison with the results of an earlier visual census showed that more bats were recorded acoustically than visually except in the city centre. This is attributed to the effect of white streetlamps during the visual census. During the acoustic census, most white lamps were replaced by yellow lamps which biased the impact of lamps on bat traffic. Nevertheless, bat species known to benefit from white streetlamps remained the most common foragers within the city.

BackgroundWhite-nose syndrome is a disease of hibernating insectivorous bats associated with the fungus Geomyces destructans. It first appeared in North America in 2006, where over a million bats died since then. In Europe, G. destructans was first identified in France in 2009. Its distribution, infection dynamics, and effects on hibernating bats in Europe are largely unknown.Methodology/principal findingsWe screened hibernacula in the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the presence of the fungus during the winter seasons of 2008/2009 and 2009/2010. In winter 2009/2010, we found infected bats in 76 out of 98 surveyed sites, in which the majority had been previously negative. A photographic record of over 6000 hibernating bats, taken since 1994, revealed bats with fungal growths since 1995; however, the incidence of such bats increased in Myotis myotis from 2% in 2007 to 14% by 2010. Microscopic, cultivation and molecular genetic evaluations confirmed the identity of the recently sampled fungus as G. destructans, and demonstrated its continuous distribution in the studied area. At the end of the hibernation season we recorded pathologic changes in the skin of the affected bats, from which the fungus was isolated. We registered no mass mortality caused by the fungus, and the recorded population decline in the last two years of the most affected species, M. myotis, is within the population trend prediction interval.Conclusions/significanceG. destructans was found to be widespread in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, with an epizootic incidence in bats during the most recent years. Further development of the situation urgently requires a detailed pan-European monitoring scheme.

The dynamics of bat populations in caves of northern Algeria were studied between 1978 and 1983. The 10 species represented were: Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, R. mehelyi, R. blasii, R. euryale, R. hipposideros, Myotis blythi, M. emarginatus, M. nattereri, M. capaccinii and Miniopterus schreibersi.

Czechoslovakia, fortunately enough, belongs to the regions having still numerous habitats resembling the original ones, or at least suitable to the needs of many original species of mammals. This concerns especially the bats while these animals are partly adapted to a synanthropic way of life in a country with many old buildings, parks, woods of different types, etc. Therefore, the protection of bats in Czechoslovakia appears not to be such a serious problem as in some other central and western European countries. Apart from the region of the South Slovakian Kars, we have no data on the decline of bat populations as a whole. Considering this, we were interested in the influence of our own activities on the populations in certain localities. This activity concerned banding, recapturing, and also collecting of bats for the purpose of systematic, morphological, parasitological, and physiological investigations. Figs. 1 and 2 show the fluctuations in number of several species of bats recorded in two bat hibernating quarters in Bohemia. Both of these localities are situated in forested areas and populated by such species as Plecotus, Barbastella, and Eptesicus nilssoni — all of them showing preference for cooler hibernating quarters.

Although I do not yet know the contents of the other contributions, I presume that the present communication somewhat deviates from the framework of the monograph. Lack of information does not allow us for the time being to draw from the available data general conclusions on the ecology of desert rodents. Therefore I hesitated to accept the kind offer of the editors to contribute about the desert rodents of Afghanistan. In the end various circumstances made me accept it. Above all it was the ecological peculiarity of Afghan mammalian habitats due to an interesting geographic situation, climate and phytogeocoenoses, and, furthermore, the fact that most of our material from Afghanistan came from a small area, the vicinity of the town Jalalabad. This has its negative consequences (see below), but its positive feature is a relatively detailed knowledge of the local rodentofauna, which is rarely achieved in this part of the world. Most of our material has been acquired by a uniform method of trapping which enabled us to obtain comparative data also applicable beyond the territory of Afghanistan. Finally, since the rodent material collected especially during the recent years in Afghanistan by various foreign zoologists is by no means negligible, it is necessary to summarize published ecological data.

This contribution comprises two remarks of ecological rather than physiological character. Contrary to Herter (1952), Herreid (1967), and Harmata (1969), I did not examine the temperature preference, or thermopreferendum, of bats under experimental conditions but concluded on it only on grounds of temperatures registered in various natural habitats of the bats. Thus, my observations pertain to the thermopreferendum of the resting bats, either inactive or active metabolically. My first remark concerns the temperatures preferred in winter. Hibernating bats are known to differ as to their requirements for ambient temperatures in their winter quarters, as pointed out, e.g., by Dulić (1958) and by many other authors. This phenomenon can be illustrated by fig. 1, showing temperature amplitudes as recorded in close vicinity of hibernating individuals of various species of bats in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria (the data have been collected during November to March but mostly during February).

The present paper gathers the results of a morphological study on 149 specimens of Rhinolophus hipposideros, and of ecological investigations on additional material, incl. some 5,000 banded individuals of the same species. Brief description of the reproductive organs of both sexes is given. The reproductive organs of the sexually mature (adult) and the sexually immature grown-up (subadult) individuals are illustrated and comments are made on their changes during the year. In adult males, the spermatogenesis commences in spring, after the change from winter torpidity to active life, and culminates towards the end of July and in August. During the winter months (December to April), the seminiferous epithelium of the tubules of testes is resting. On the contrary, the interstitial cells of Leydig are conspicuously developed in the period from October to April (or May). The tubules of the epididymides of adult males are never entirely free of spermatozoa but they contain the lowest numbers of the latter at the period of intensive spermatogenesis. Towards the end of August and in September, the tubules of the cauda epididymidis begin to be filled with greater numbers of spermatozoa, being overcrowded with them in the period from October till April. Apart from the ampullar glands, the seminal vesicles, the prostate and the bulbourethral or Cowper’s glands, the males of R.h. possess a conspicuously developed accessory sexual gland, discovered, in Rhinolophus, by ROBIN (1881b) and termed the glandula urethralis. This gland is the greatest element of the male genital tract, being at the peak of its secretory activity in October and November. The staining properties of the secretion of this gland indicate that the urethral gland takes an important part in the origin of the female vaginal plug. Most of the adult females were found to copulate already in autumn, from late September till November. Ovulation takes place in April, still before the dissipation of the vaginal plug. Pregnancy lasts for about 2½ months; lactation, for 4 to 5 weeks. The main information on the course of estrous cycle was obtained by histological examinations of vaginal epithelium. The following is the succession of the individual phases of the estrous cycle of reproducing female R.h. in Czechoslovakia: proestrus, late August and early September; estrus, late September till early April; pregnancy, late April till first days of July; lactation, July and early August. The life of R.h. can be divided into three main periods, viz., the juvenile, subadult and adult period. The juvenile period lasts about two and a half months, from July till September. The pelage of individuals younger than some 14 months of age is grey, that of older ones being greyish brown to brown in colour. The male R.h. attain sexual maturity at an approximative age of one year and are first capable of fertilizing at the age of about 15 months, in the second autumn of their life. While the first signs of estrus appear in female R.h. already at the age of 4 months, most of them attain sexual maturity only towards the end of the second year of their life. A small percentage of females (15%, according to banding results) reproduce already at the end of the first year of their life. Although the uterus of one pregnant female R.h. was found to contain two embryos, our results indicate that the litter size equals one. The greatest longevity of R.h. in Czechoslovakia, determined by banding, is 10½ years for males and 9½ years for females. A certain percentage of adult females (6.7% of the material examined) do not reproduce. Sex ratio among the juveniles is 1 : 1 while males predominate among the subadults and, especially, adults; however, a question arises of the extent in which the sample obtained corresponds to the actual relations in the population. The paper is concluded by a discussion. The main problems arising from the study are discussed, viz., the possible hormonal regulation of the male sexual activity, the estrous condition of females, especially during hibernation (the so-called “subestrus”), and the time of attaining sexual maturity.

International audience; With the goal of bypassing indirect approaches to the man-bat relationship through folklore and art, the authors propose a direct approach that aims at capturing the mental representations that man forms of bats in contemporary societies. The results of a pilot study carried out in Switzerland are presented. The relevance of such an approach is evident from the problems having to do with campaigns for the protection and conservation of species.