“Species roost at different heights”
Previously only one study had formally documented differences in
roosting height between species (Table 2). This included record of black
flying-foxes and grey-headed flying-foxes only, and did not provide
measures of absolute height (rather, roosting in different quadrants of
trees) (Welbergen 2005). From our new dataset, we observed segregation
of species by roosting height, with black flying-foxes typically showing
the highest roosting heights (average maximum height with interquartile
range: 18.0, 14.6-21.0; average minimum height with interquartile range:
14.3, 11.3-17.2), followed by grey-headed (maximum: 15.1, 11.2-18.9;
minimum: 12.6, 8.8-16.2), then little red flying-foxes (when present)
(maximum: 11.4, 9.2-13.6; minimum: 8.8, 7.1-10.4) (Figure 7). Note,
however, that topographical variation within roosts was not taken into
consideration in measures of height. Differences in heights presented
here reflect a relative difference in roosting heights from the ground
within trees, but may not reflect true, realised height relative of the
canopy.