Seasonal challenges of tropical bats in a temperate zone Data Tables
Description
This data set contains the raw data for the analysis of fruit bats' mortality in Israel. The dataset consists of the following files and directories: 1) mortality table full .xlsx: Data of all reported cases of the bats gathered by the fruit-bat NGO ‘Amutat Atalef’between 2018 and 2022. 2) bat_tracking_table.xlsx: Movement data of 36 bats in Tel Aviv open colony. The data was collected during 2018 - 2022 using GPS tags attached to the bats. 3) tree_visit_sum.csv: Summary of the bats in different fruit tree species. 4) TempeartureBYStation: A directory of the meteorological data in 6 station in Israel
Files
Steps to reproduce
The fruit-bat NGO ‘Amutat Atalef’ received ~700 reports on fruit bats every year between 2018 and 2021. These messages are conveyed through the “WhatsApp” application, to a group of volunteers who rush to assist the bats. Between November 2018 and November 2021, every text message sent through this group was integrated into a table, which was organized as follows: date, time, location, rural vs urban surroundings, sex, estimated age, clinical description of the morbidity, and/or mortality. All these entries were compared to the provided images and were evaluated blindly and independently by two examiners (MW is a veterinarian doctor specializing in bats for over a decade and SG, a student who was trained by MW) who are well acquainted with R. aegyptiacus between 4/11/2018 and 23/10/2021. Cases reported without the location were excluded from the analysis. There is currently no accurate way to determine bats’ age visually, so bats were divided into two age categories: adults or young pups, which were always less than 4 months old, based on visual parameters. Morbidity was categorized into 4 major types of health issues: acute trauma, infection, feet condition, and undefined. Morbidity refers to adult bats only, since pups, when found, were all categorized as lost, e.g., involuntarily separated from their mothers. Cases of mortality were reported, in the same manner through the WhatsApp group. We have collected climate data from the archive of the national meteorological database service (https://ims.data.gov.il/ (for the relevant period. Information regarding the daily minimum and maximal temperature and precipitation was collected from the database. Wind speed was collected by the hour and averaged per day. For weekly analysis, the daily data was averaged over the relevant period. To track fruit availability and consumption by the bats during wintertime, as well as the amount of time spent outside the roost for commuting and foraging, a total of 36 bats were tracked using GPS. Bats were tracked during the following periods: 11/2018- 03/2019 five bats, 01/2020-05/2020 15 bats, 01/2021-05/2021 12 bats, and 09/2021-11/2021 four bats in the Tel Aviv area. The fruit trees visited by the bats including their location and species identification were verified by visiting the actual locations where the bats foraged.