Weather, ultrasonic, cranial and body traits predict insect diet hardness in a Central Mexican bat community
MAMMAL RESEARCH(2023)
摘要
Insectivorous bats exhibit food preferences for specific attributes in their prey. Hardness has been defined as an important prey attribute, and in some cases a limiting factor in foraging decisions for smaller compared to larger bat species. The goal of this study was to identify which factors influence the selection of prey hardness in a vespertilionid bat community. We investigated food consumed by bats by analyzing fecal samples obtained from eight bat species coexisting in a mountain ecosystem of central Mexico and correlate non-phylogenetically and phylogenetically prey hardness to weather, bat´s body, cranial and ultrasonic call structure variables. Results showed that diet of vespertilionid bats was mainly represented by Diptera, Neuroptera, Lepidoptera and Coleoptera consumption. The qualitative prey hardness index (From soft 1 to hard 5) ranked bats as: Myotis melanorhinus , Corynorhinus mexicanus , Myotis volans , Myotis californicus (< 3); Myotis velifer (< 4); Eptesicus fuscus , Idionycteris phyllotis and Myotis thysanodes (> 4.2). Prey hardness was positively correlated to minimum and mean temperatures, bat´s body weight, total and forearm lengths, cranial variables as: zygomatic breadth, mandibular length, height of the coronoid process, lower molar width, C-M3 superior and inferior rows length and upper molar width; and negatively to ultrasonic variables as total slope, call duration, low and high frequencies, band width and frequency maximum power. Considering phylogenies, prey hardness positively correlated to mandibular length, C-M3 inferior and superior rows lengths ( p < 0.05). Our results showed that environmental, morphological and echolocation variables can be used as predictors of preferred insect prey in a community of vespertilionid bats.
更多查看译文
关键词
Feeding traits selection,Insectivore bats,Hard and soft prey,Vespertilionid
AI 理解论文
溯源树
样例
![](https://originalfileserver.aminer.cn/sys/aminer/pubs/mrt_preview.jpeg)
生成溯源树,研究论文发展脉络
Chat Paper
正在生成论文摘要