TY  - GEN
A1  - Autenrieth, Marijke
A1  - Ernst, Anja
A1  - Deaville, Rob
A1  - Demaret, Fabien
A1  - Ijsseldijk, Lonneke L.
A1  - Siebert, Ursula
A1  - Tiedemann, Ralph
T1  - Putative origin and maternal relatedness of male sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) recently stranded in the North Sea
T2  - Mammalian biology = Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde
N2  - The globally distributed sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) has a partly matrilineal social structure with predominant male dispersal. At the beginning of 2016, a total of 30 male sperm whales stranded in five different countries bordering the southern North Sea. It has been postulated that these individuals were on a migration route from the north to warmer temperate and tropical waters where females live in social groups. By including samples from four countries (n = 27), this event provided a unique chance to genetically investigate the maternal relatedness and the putative origin of these temporally and spatially co-occuring male sperm whales. To utilize existing genetic resources, we sequenced 422 bp of the mitochondrial control region, a molecular marker for which sperm whale data are readily available from the entire distribution range. Based on four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the mitochondrial control region, five matrilines could be distinguished within the stranded specimens, four of which matched published haplotypes previously described in the Atlantic. Among these male sperm whales, multiple matrilineal lineages co-occur. We analyzed the population differentiation and could show that the genetic diversity of these male sperm whales is comparable to the genetic diversity in sperm whales from the entire Atlantic Ocean. We confirm that within this stranding event, males do not comprise maternally related individuals and apparently include assemblages of individuals from different geographic regions. (c) 2017 Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Saugetierkunde. Published by Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.
KW  - Mitochondrial DNA
KW  - Maternal relationships
KW  - Population genetics
KW  - Migration
KW  - Marine mammals
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mambio.2017.09.003
SN  - 1616-5047
SN  - 1618-1476
VL  - 88
SP  - 156
EP  - 160
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - München
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heim, Olga
A1  - Schröder, Assja
A1  - Eccard, Jana
A1  - Jung, Kirsten
A1  - Voigt, Christian C.
T1  - Seasonal activity patterns of European bats above intensively used farmland
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics ; Part 2, Letters
N2  - Bats are top insect predators on farmland, yet they suffer from intensive farmland management. Here, we evaluated the seasonal activity patterns of European bats above large, arable fields and compared these patterns between ecologically distinct bat species. Using repeated passive acoustic monitoring on a total of 93 arable fields in 2 years in Brandenburg, Germany, we surveyed the activity of different bat species between early spring and autumn. We then used generalized additive mixed models to describe and compare the seasonal bat activity patterns between bat categories, which were build based on the affiliation to a functional group and migratory class, while controlling for local weather conditions. In general, the affiliation to a bat category in interaction with the season in addition to cloud cover and ambient air temperature explained a major part of bat activity. The season was also an important factor for the foraging activity of open-space specialists such as Nyctalus noctula but showed only a weak effect on species such as Pipistreilus nathusii which are adapted to edge-space habitats. Across the seasons, habitat use intensity was high during the period of swarming and migration and low during the energy demanding period of lactation. Seasonal patterns in foraging activity showed that open-space specialists foraged more intensively above agricultural fields during the migration period, while edge-space specialists foraged also during the energy demanding period of lactation. We conclude that the significant seasonal fluctuations in bat activity and significant differences between bat categories in open agricultural landscapes should be taken into consideration when designing monitoring schemes and management plans for bat species in regions dominated by agriculture. Also, management plans should be directed to improve the conditions on arable land especially for bat species which would be classified as narrow-space foragers such as Myotis species. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW  - Agricultural intensification
KW  - Seasonality
KW  - European bat species
KW  - Functional bat group
KW  - Migration
KW  - AgroScapeLabs
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2016.09.002
SN  - 0167-8809
SN  - 1873-2305
VL  - 233
SP  - 130
EP  - 139
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -