The thousand-year history of the Slovak Karst inferred from pollen in bat guano inside the Domica Cave (Slovakia)

Abstract

A thousand years old 105 cm deep deposit of bat guano in the Domica Cave (southern Slovakia, Slovak Karst National Park) has been discovered for science, and three samples were analysed for pollen to identify the bats' preferred foraging habitats and for insect remains to identify their diet. The bat species concerned, Rhinolophus euryale, is rare in the area, which lies at the northern margin of its distribution. The pollen record captured alder forests between 897-1024 AD, temperate light broad-leaved oak-hornbeam forests with Quercus cerris, Fraxinus ornus, Cornus mas and Corylus avellana between 1522-1800 AD, and almost recently willow shrubs. This pattern may, however, reflect local changes in the surrounding landscape where the bats hunted. Pollen of anemophilous taxa was underrepresented (e.g. Fagus), while entomophilous taxa were overrepresented (e.g. Fraxinus ornus, Loranthus europaeus, Acer, Agrostemma githago). The phenology of the encountered pollen taxa indicates that the bats used the Domica Cave mainly as spring and summer roosts. The pollen record further indicates that the bats prefer to forage in a forest-steppe landscape with open Pannonian broadleaved forests and humid temperate riparian environments. Today, this kind of landscape does not occur further north, which may explain the northern limit of this bat species at the study site.

Geomorphometric analysis of cave ceiling channels mapped with 3-D terrestrial laser scanning

“…The cave was inhabited by the Neolithic people but after a natural blockage of the entrance the cave had not been visited by a human until Ján Majko re-discovered it in 1926. Since that time, the cave had been widely studied from various research fields (Nováková, 2009;Papáč et al, 2014;Svitavská-Svobodová et al, 2015;Mihailović et al, 2015). The Domica-Baradla cave system is a listed UNESCO Nat- Figure 3.…”

Pollen assemblage and environmental DNA changes: A 4300-year-old bat guano deposit from Jamaica

“…Finding intact guano deposits can be difficult because of commercial and recreational cave exploration as well as periodic inundation and flooding of some cave systems. However, if available, well-stratified guano deposits are important archives for pollen (e.g., Navarro et al, 2001;Carrión et al, 2006;Leroy and Simms, 2006;Maher, 2006;Batina and Reese, 2011;Geantă et al, 2012;Choa et al, 2016) providing information about the vegetation in areas where bats were active (Geantă et al, 2012;Forrey et al, 2015;Marais et al, 2015;Svitavská-Svobodová et al, 2015). Guano deposits can also provide data about entomophilous plants otherwise underrepresented in more traditional pollen sampling sites (Carrión et al, 2006;Leroy and Simms, 2006;Maher, 2006;Svitavská-Svobodová et al, 2015).…”

“…However, if available, well-stratified guano deposits are important archives for pollen (e.g., Navarro et al, 2001;Carrión et al, 2006;Leroy and Simms, 2006;Maher, 2006;Batina and Reese, 2011;Geantă et al, 2012;Choa et al, 2016) providing information about the vegetation in areas where bats were active (Geantă et al, 2012;Forrey et al, 2015;Marais et al, 2015;Svitavská-Svobodová et al, 2015). Guano deposits can also provide data about entomophilous plants otherwise underrepresented in more traditional pollen sampling sites (Carrión et al, 2006;Leroy and Simms, 2006;Maher, 2006;Svitavská-Svobodová et al, 2015). For more than a decade, guano has also been a target for genetic analysis using metabarcoding (Pompanon et al, 2012) to identify predator-prey relationships and to generate dietary profiles.…”