[Journals]: Shifts in Physiological Mechanisms Let Male Bats
Balance the Need to Feed and the Urge to Breed  Source Contact:
Dr. Nina I. Becker /    As small and active flying mammals, bats
have very high mass-specific energy requirements and as such
continually adjust their rates of activity and metabolism in
response to ambient temperature and other seasonal variation. In
particular, during the autumn mating season, male bats must
carefully balance time spent foraging (to gain enough fat to
last the winter hibernation) with time spent finding a mate.
Because both activities require significant effort, how do male
bats do it? In an upcoming issue of Physiological and
Biochemical Zoology, Nina Becker and colleagues reveal that the
answer lies in the bats’ resting metabolic rate. In their study,
the group monitored the thermoregulation, energy intake,
activity, and metabolism of free-ranging Daubenton’s bats Myotis
daubentonii during this insectivorous species’ main activity
period of the year (mid-April to mi