DOI: 10.5061/dryad.tqjq2bw9q
title: The effect of venipuncture site on hematology of bats: implications for comparative analyses

description: Wildlife health comparisons within and across populations and species are
 essential for population assessment and surveillance of emerging
 infectious diseases. Due to low costs and high informational yield,
 hematology is commonly used in the fields of ecoimmunology and disease
 ecology, yet consistency and proper reporting of methods within these
 fields are lacking. Previous investigations on various wildlife taxa have
 revealed noteworthy impacts of the vein used for blood collection on
 hematology measures. However, the impacts of venipuncture site on bats, a
 taxon of increasing interest in ecoimmunology and disease
 ecology,  have not yet been tested. Here, we use a long-term
 study system in western Oklahoma to test the effect of venipuncture site
 on hematology parameters of the Mexican free-tailed bat (Tadarida
 brasiliensis) and cave myotis (Myotis velifer), two abundant and
 representative bat species from the families Molossidae and
 Vespertilionidae. Between September 2023 and October 2024, we collected
 paired peripheral blood from both the propatagial and intrafemoral veins
 in 25 individuals per species. We then quantified total red and white
 blood cells, reticulocyte counts, and leukocyte differentials and used
 generalized linear mixed models to compare parameters among venipuncture
 sites within and between bat species. Overall, venipuncture site had no
 effect on any hematology parameters; however, we revealed small
 differences in neutrophil and lymphocyte proportions between veins among
 the species. By contrast, we detected significant species-level
 differences in most cell measurements, which we propose could be explained
 by life-history strategy and phylogenetic differences. We encourage
 continued testing of additional venipuncture sites, and of the same
 venipuncture sites on different species, on hematology and other health
 metrics used in ecoimmunology and disease ecology. Lastly, we emphasize
 the importance of thorough method reporting in publications to enable
 transparent comparisons and accounting for even small sampling-based
 artifacts. All future efforts are especially important for bats to improve
 conservation monitoring, ecosystem services estimations, and their
 association with emerging infectious diseases.
description: # The effect of venipuncture site on hematology of bats: implications for
 comparative analyses Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.tqjq2bw9q](10.5061/dryad.tqjq2bw9q) ## Description of the
 data and file structure ICB_0043_data.csv column name codes ### Files and
 variables #### File: ICB\_0043\_data.csv **Description:**  ##### Variables
 * ID: bat identification number  * Date: date bats were sampled
 (MM/DD/YYYY) * Species: bat species name in four letter code  * med_RBC:
 median red blood cell count  * RBC_Total: total red blood cell count *
 med_WBC: median white blood cell count * WBC_Total: total red blood cell
 count * ret_Total: total reticulocyte count * med_Ret: median reticulocyte
 count * Vein: vein site blood was collected from  * Basophil: basophil
 count * Eosinophil: eosinophil count * Monocyte: monocyte count *
 Banded_neutrophil: banded neutrophil count * Segmented_neutrophil:
 segmented neutrophil count * Lymphocyte: lymphocyte count * Slide_Size:
 blood smear surface area size * order_of_bleeding: vein order in which
 blood was collected  * Neutrophils: total neutrophil count * totalcells:
 total white blood cells counted per blood smear  * NL: neutrophil to
 lymphocyte ratio * sx: sex (F=female; M=male) * ag: age (A= adult) * rp:
 reproductive status (PL = post-lactating; S = scrotal; N=
 non-reproductive; P = pregnant) * time: time of capture (24-hour format) *
 BT: time of bleeding (24-hour format where 2400 = 12AM, 2500 = 1AM, etc.)
 NA = not available  ## Access information Other publicly accessible
 locations of the data: * n/a Data was derived from the following sources:
 * n/a