ArticleEcology and evolution2026
Chiroptera Personality-A Guide for Assessing Personality Variation in Bats: Ecological, Methodological and Statistical Considerations.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Consistent between-individual differences, that is, animal personality (AP) is among the fastest-growing topics in behavioural biology, with theoretical and empirical work showing important consequences for ecology, evolution and conservation. Yet bats-the second-largest mammalian order-remain markedly underrepresented despite their functional importance in many ecosystems. We therefore synthesise ecological, methodological and statistical considerations for analysing bat personality while retaining general validity to facilitate transferability to other taxa. Because many bat species exhibit extraordinary life histories and characteristics, we provide structured guidance to design impactful experimental setups, anticipate field-work challenges, unify schemes for annotating recordings and navigate complex analyses associated with repeated measures. These decisions are critical because they determine repeatability, ecological validity and cross-study comparability, and they delimit which statistical models can be robustly fitted under realistic sample sizes and field logistics. We provide a comprehensive statistical protocol both as a schematic overview and as an annotated R script accompanied by dummy data. The workflow covers five main steps expected in a hypothetical personality study: (i) analysis of structural covariates using (G)LMMs, (ii) repeatability analysis to identify consistent behavioural measures, (iii) principal component analysis for dimensionality reduction, (iv) validation of traits via control experiments and (v) modelling links from putative behavioural traits to a focal outcome with ecologically significance. Together, these resources enable researchers to follow, understand and implement the entire procedure and to extrapolate the methodology to their own experiments. By unifying methodological practice for a currently under-represented taxon, we aim to maximise the validity of findings and highlight promising avenues for future studies that establish strong, hypothesis-driven testing paradigms for bat personalities. More broadly, we seek to deepen understanding of personality variation and its consequences in bats specifically and to enhance the comparative value of AP research generally.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.