The Geographic Variation Among The Echolocation Calls Of Hipposideros Armiger In Different Locations

Hipposideros armiger (Chiroptera: Hipposideridae) mainly distributes in South and South-east. Now it has been listed as a Lc species by Red List of Threatened of International Union for Conservation of Nature. We captured 55 male and 65 female individuals in 9 caves of South and South-east in China fron April 2008 to September 2008, and we examined variation patterns in the parameters of echolocation calls of bats on a broad geographical scale. The relationship between geographic variation among the echolocation calls and the body size, the local environmental factors, the geographical distance, the individual differences were analyzed by pearson correlation analysis, step linear regression, mantel test, nested analysis of variance for each echolocation parameter, respectively. The geographic variation of the echolocation calls and the causes of variation are important and critical fields of zooecology, and it has a great significance for exploring the mechanism of survival and saving species. The conclusions were as follows:1. Echolocation calls of Hipposideros armiger were CF-FM type in different location. A One-Way Analysis of variance indicated the calls were significantly. Significant differences in the parameters of echolocation calls were observed among populations throughout the species range in the China mainland.2. Pearson correlation analysis was applied to test the relationship between echolocation calls and body size. Peak frequency were associated with body mass in male (r = -0.883, P < 0.05), but we didn't find correlation in female, and there are significant negative correlation between maxiture frequence, miniture frequence with the body mass in male (r = -0.95, -0.78; P < 0.05) and in female (r = -0.797, -0.993; P < 0.05), the other parameters of the calls were not influenced by body size.3. We tested for associations between observed call parameters and weather conditions at the locations. A series of linear regressions of the means of call parameters against each weather variable were conducted. But this variation was not associated with local weather conditions except mean annual atmosphere pressure (female: y = 0.017 x + 52.30, r2 = 0.85, P < 0.001; male: y = 0.014 x + 55.295, r2 = 0.741, P < 0.05) and mean annual wind velocity (male: y = 1.884 x + 65.770, r2 = 0.821, P < 0.001).4. To assess whether differences in calls parameters was related to geographic distance, we first calculate a dissimilarity matrix of calls parameters distances between locations, we then calculated a geographical distance matrix from the latitude and longitude of each location, and compared the acoustic and geographical distance matrices using a nonparametric Mantel test of matrix association. But variation of echolocation calls was not associated with geographical distance.5. The frequency peak, the maxiture frequency, the miniature frequency were primarily fluenced by location, but observed variability of other parameters of echolocation calls between sites was primarily due to differences between individuals. Variation in echolocation call parameters between individuals may indicate that the flexibility has important meaning of individual recognition.