title: [Single and group organizations of individual animals in the community of bats (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) hibernating in artificial caves of the Samarskaia Luka].
abstract: The spatial arrangement of individual bats of seven species and their tendency to form groups were studied in artificial caves of the Samara Luka during five winter periods (1999 and 2003-2006). It was demonstrated that formation of dense groups did not depend on the hibernating population size or density and was related to the biological characteristics of the species. Most Myotis brandtii and M. dasycneme (60-80% of the populations) wintered in groups. M. mystacinus, M. daubentonii, Pecotus auritus, M. nattereri, and Eptesicus nilssonii usually wintered singly (87% of the animals). In M. brandtii and M. dasycneme, as many as 78% of individual animals were in conspecific groups, whereas this proportion for the other species was no higher than 11%. All pairs of species exhibited negative assortativeness, which indicated a higher preference of spending winter in conspecific groups than in groups containing representatives of other species. Estimation of the ratios between groups containing animals of one and several species showed that conspecific groups were prevailing in M. brandtii and M. dasycneme, whereas all other species usually formed mixed groups.
authors.forename: D G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Smirnov
authors.forename: V P
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Vekhnik
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000502:physiology*; D006605:Hibernation; D011157:Population Dynamics