Amelon Sybill K, Hooper Sarah E, Womack Kathryn M
USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, University of Missouri, 202 Anheuser-Busch Natural Resources Building, Columbia, MO 65211, USA (SKA).
College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Missouri, 4011 Discovery Drive S219, Columbia, MO 65211, USA (SEH).
J Mammal. 2017 May 29;98(3):744-751. doi: 10.1093/jmammal/gyx018. Epub 2017 Mar 21.
The ability to recognize individuals within an animal population is fundamental to conservation and management. Identification of individual bats has relied on artificial marking techniques that may negatively affect the survival and alter the behavior of individuals. Biometric systems use biological characteristics to identify individuals. The field of animal biometrics has expanded to include recognition of individuals based upon various morphologies and phenotypic variations including pelage patterns, tail flukes, and whisker arrangement. Biometric systems use 4 biologic measurement criteria: universality, distinctiveness, permanence, and collectability. Additionally, the system should not violate assumptions of capture-recapture methods that include no increased mortality or alterations of behavior. We evaluated whether individual bats could be uniquely identified based upon the collagen-elastin bundles that are visible with gross examination of their wings. We examined little brown bats (), northern long-eared bats (), big brown bats (), and tricolored bats () to determine whether the "wing prints" from the bundle network would satisfy the biologic measurement criteria. We evaluated 1,212 photographs from 230 individual bats comparing week 0 photos with those taken at weeks 3 or 6 and were able to confirm identity of individuals over time. Two blinded evaluators were able to successfully match 170 individuals in hand to photographs taken at weeks 0, 3, and 6. This study suggests that bats can be successfully re-identified using photographs taken at previous times. We suggest further evaluation of this methodology for use in a standardized system that can be shared among bat conservationists.
在动物种群中识别个体的能力对于保护和管理至关重要。识别个体蝙蝠一直依赖于人工标记技术，而这些技术可能会对个体的生存产生负面影响并改变其行为。生物识别系统利用生物特征来识别个体。动物生物识别领域已经扩展到包括基于各种形态和表型变异来识别个体，这些变异包括皮毛图案、尾鳍和须的排列。生物识别系统使用4种生物测量标准：普遍性、独特性、永久性和可采集性。此外，该系统不应违反标记重捕法的假设，即不增加死亡率或改变行为。我们评估了是否可以根据在肉眼检查蝙蝠翅膀时可见的胶原-弹性蛋白束来唯一识别个体蝙蝠。我们检查了小棕蝠、北长耳蝠、大棕蝠和三色蝠，以确定来自束状网络的“翼纹”是否满足生物测量标准。我们评估了来自230只个体蝙蝠的1212张照片，将第0周的照片与第3周或第6周拍摄的照片进行比较，并能够随时间确认个体身份。两名不知情的评估人员能够成功地将170只手中的个体与第0周、第3周和第6周拍摄的照片进行匹配。这项研究表明，使用以前拍摄的照片可以成功地重新识别蝙蝠。我们建议进一步评估这种方法，以便在一个可以在蝙蝠保护主义者之间共享的标准化系统中使用。
