the importance of distance to resources in the spatial modelling of bat foraging habitat距离资源的重要性在蝙蝠觅食生境的空间造型.pdfVIP

The Importance of Distance to Resources in the Spatial Modelling of Bat Foraging Habitat Ana Rainho1,2*, Jorge M. Palmeirim1 ˆ ˜ 1 Departamento de Biologia Animal and Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Faculdade de Ciencias, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal, 2 Instituto da Conservac¸ao da Natureza e da Biodiversidade, Lisboa, Portugal Abstract Many bats are threatened by habitat loss, but opportunities to manage their habitats are now increasing. Success of management depends greatly on the capacity to determine where and how interventions should take place, so models predicting how animals use landscapes are important to plan them. Bats are quite distinctive in the way they use space for foraging because (i) most are colonial central-place foragers and (ii) exploit scattered and distant resources, although this increases flying costs. To evaluate how important distances to resources are in modelling foraging bat habitat suitability, we radio-tracked two cave-dwelling species of conservation concern (Rhinolophus mehelyi and Miniopterus schreibersii) in a Mediterranean landscape. Habitat and distance variables were evaluated using logistic regression modelling. Distance variables greatly increased the performance of models, and distance to roost and to drinking water could alone explain 86 and 73% of the use of space by M. schreibersii and R. mehelyi, respectively. Land-cover and soil productivity also provided a significant contribution to the final models. Habitat suitability maps generated by models with and without distance variables differed substantially, confirming the shortcomings of maps generated without distance variables. Indeed, areas shown as