Understanding Roost Fidelity in Cave-Dwelling Bats: Insights from PIT-Tag Monitoring of Rhinolophus euryale

Roosts are vital for bats, offering protection and a place to rest, breed, and socialise. Among roost types, caves are the most stable but also the least available, leading cave-dwelling bats to form larger colonies and switch roosts less often than tree-rosting species. Conservation and monitoring efforts rely on this high roost fidelity assumption, with emergence counts commonly used to estimate population size. Over the past three years, I have monitored Mediterranean horseshoe bat maternity colonies using PIT-tag systems. In the first chapter of my thesis, I analyse how an individual’s sex and age influence roost fidelity and explore the implications for conservation and population monitoring strategies.