Some Factors Behind Density Dynamics Of Bat Flies (Diptera, Nycteribiidae) - Ectoparasites Of The Boreal Chiropterans: Omitted Predictors And Hurdle Model Identification.

We investigated density dynamics of three bat flies species (Diptera, Nycteribiidae): Penicillidia monoceros Speiser, 1900, Nycteribia quasiocellata (Theodor, 1966), Basilia rybini (Hurka, 1969) parasitized on two host species: pond bat, Myotis dasycneme (Boie, 1825), and eastern water bat, Myotis petax Hollister, 1912. Females of M. dasycneme have 3.4 (95 % CI 1.4-8.3) times higher odds of being infested, and in 2.4 (1.5-3.7) times higher average number of P. monoceros than males. Similarly, females of M. petax have 1.7 (1.2-2.4) times higher density of N. quasiocellata and/or B. rybini. We hypothesized an existence of host-sex-recognition mechanism in bat flies, providing it fine 'ecological profit' due to sex-biased dispersal among adult host during wintering and the chance to infested a host offspring later (in summer). The decrease (due to mortality or emigration) in density of bat flies can be described as simple harmonic or S-shaped curve, and its 'step' apparently corresponds to time of host pairing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]