Long-term field study reveals that warmer summers lead to larger and longer-lived females only in northern populations of Natterer's bats.

ABSTRACT: Animals often respond to climate change with changes in morphology, e.g., shrinking body size with increasing temperatures, as expected by Bergmann's rule. Because small body size can have fitness costs for individuals, this trend could threaten populations. Recent studies, however, show that morphological responses to climate change and the resulting fitness consequences cannot be generalized even among related species. In this long-term study, we investigate the interaction between ambient temperature, body size and survival probability in a large number of individually marked wild adult female Natterer's bats (Myotis nattereri). We compare populations from two geographical regions in Germany with a different climate. In a sliding window analysis, we found larger body sizes in adult fema

SUBMITTER: Stapelfeldt B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10038953 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature