Trophic resource partitioning drives fine‐scale coexistence in cryptic bat species

Abstract

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Food for everyone: Differential feeding habits of cryptic bat species inferred from DNA metabarcoding

“…Co‐occurring cryptic species constitute ideal models to investigate mechanisms of trophic niche partitioning with fine‐grained resolution. Previous attempts to unravel the diet of sympatric bat species have been carried using DNA metabarcoding, but all either focused on distantly‐related taxa (Emrich et al 2014 ; Vesterinen et al, 2018 ), or on geographically‐distant or time‐limited samplings (Arrizabalaga‐Escudero et al, 2018 ; Novella‐Fernandez et al, 2020 ; Razgour et al, 2011 ). The present study is the first of its kind to characterize the diet of three cryptic long‐eared bats living in narrow geographic vicinity, and to access with high resolution their menu of arthropods throughout an entire season of activity.…”

Broad‐scale patterns of geographic avoidance between species emerge in the absence of fine‐scale mechanisms of coexistence

“…bats, biotic interactions, competition, cryptic species, geographic avoidance, species distribution modelling, species ranges (Novella-Fernandez et al, 2020). We predict that broad-scale geographic avoidance can be detected in pairs of species with higher ecological similarity and in the absence of fine-scale coexistence mechanisms.…”

“…We apply the measure to four sets of cryptic Palearctic bat species (10 bat species) that show different degrees of ecological similarity and range overlap. Cryptic species are morphologically similar but genetically distinct species and therefore are likely to show high ecological similarity and compete for the same resources, offering an excellent model system for testing competitive interactions (Novella‐Fernandez et al., 2020). We predict that broad‐scale geographic avoidance can be detected in pairs of species with higher ecological similarity and in the absence of fine‐scale coexistence mechanisms.…”

Dietary analysis reveals differences in the prey use of two sympatric bat species

“…ikonnikovi based on wing morphology and echolocation call characteristics. To test this prediction, we followed the method used by Novella‐Fernandez et al ( 2020 ) and classified the prey items into categories of volant (e.g., Chironomidae) versus non ‐ volant (e.g., Salticidae) and subsequently classified the volant prey items based on their diel activity patterns into categories of nocturnal (e.g., Noctuidae) or diurnal (e.g., Muscidae). The classification was carried out on the family or a finer taxonomic level and was based on published information (please find the list of citations in Appendix S5 : A4 and a table of the classified prey items in the Appendix S3 ).…”

“…The group of bats is an interesting target group in that respect, as they are a very specious, diverse group and many species are in part or obligatory insectivorous. Several interesting studies have been published that investigated how morphologically similar, sympatric bat species coexist (Arrizabalaga‐Escudero et al, 2018; Geipel et al, 2021; Novella‐Fernandez et al, 2020; Roeleke et al, 2018).…”