Shifting and permanent cultivation, selective logging, cattle production and coffee plantations are among the most important factors in montane cloud forest conversion and disturbance. Although shaded-coffee plantations can contribute to the preservation of local species richness, abundance of organisms could be determined by habitat resource availability in agricultural landscapes. We compared abundance of Sturnira and Artibeus bats (Phyllostomidae, Stenodermatinae), in shade coffee plantations and disturbed cloud forest fragments, which represent habitats with different chiropterochorous plant density. We also investigated the relationship between bat species abundance and food plant richness, abundance and diversity. We captured 956 bats, 76% in cloud forest fragments and 24% in shaded coffee plantations. Abundance of Sturnira spp. (small bats) was greater in cloud forest than in coffee plantations, but Artibeus spp. (large bats) abundance was similar in both habitats. Chiropterochorous plant abundance was positively related with bat abundance for Sturnira spp., while chiropterochorous plant richness and diversity were negatively related for Artibeus spp. This suggests that frugivorous bats with different morphological and ecological characteristics respond differentially to anthropogenic activities. For landscape management purposes, the maintenance and augmentation of diverse food resources, for frugivorous bats with different foraging requirements in coffee plantations, will benefit the resilience of bats to modification of their natural habitat.

Seeds dispersed and deposited by wind, animals and other dispersal agents are a fundamental component of natural forest succession, plant regeneration and population maintenance, aside from increasing a population's genetic pool in tropical ecosystems (Henry & Jouard 2007, Muscarella & Fleming 2007, Wilson & Traveset 2000). Frugivorous bats and birds are ideal vectors for long-distance seed dispersal; therefore, studies of the food habits of frugivores and the specific identities of the dispersers are essential for understanding ecological patterns and processes in tropical environments. Studies related to succession processes, the frequency, number and composition of seeds dispersed by animals are essential in order to generate new data and hypotheses, consequently the method and quality of obtaining data are important.

We investigated the reproductive biology, including the floral biology, pollination biology, breeding system and reproductive success, of Pachira aquatica, a native and dominant tropical tree of fresh water wetlands, throughout the coastal plain of the Gulf of Mexico. The flowers present nocturnal anthesis, copious nectar production and sugar concentration (range 18-23%) suitable for nocturnal visitors such as bats and sphingid moths. The main nocturnal visitors were bats and sphingid moths while bees were the main diurnal visitors. There were no differences in legitimate visitation rates among bats, moths and honey bees. Bats and honey bees fed mainly on pollen while moths fed on nectar, suggesting resource partitioning. Eight species of bats carried pollen but Leptonycteris yerbabuenae is probably the most effective pollinator due to its higher pollen loads. The sphingid moths Manduca rustica, Cocytius duponchel and Eumorpha satellitia were recorded visiting flowers. Hand pollination experiments indicated a predominant outcrossing breeding system. Open pollination experiments resulted in a null fruit set, indicating pollen limitation; however, mean reproductive success, according to a seasonal census, was 17 ± 3%; these contrasting results could be explained by the seasonal availability of pollinators. We conclude that P. aquatica is an outcrossing species with a pollination system originally specialized for bats and sphingid moths, which could be driven to a multimodal pollination system due to the introduction of honey bees to tropical America.

Animals have evolved different cognitive processes to localize crucial resources that are difficult to find. Relevant cognitive processes such as associative learning and spatial memory have commonly been studied in a foraging related context under controlled laboratory conditions. However, in natural environments, animals can use multiple cognitive processes to localize resources. In this field study, we used a pairwise choice experiment and automatic roost monitoring to assess how individually marked, free-ranging Bechstein's bats belonging to two different colonies use associative learning, spatial memory and social information when localizing suitable day roosts. To our knowledge, this study tests for the first time how associative learning, spatial memory and social information are used in the process of roost localization in bats under the natural conditions. We show that, when searching for new roosts, bats used associative learning to discriminate between suitable and unsuitable roosts. For re-localizing previously occupied roosts, bats used spatial memory rather than associative learning. Moreover, bats significantly improved the localization of suitable unfamiliar roosts and tended to increase their accuracy to re-localize previously occupied day roosts using social information. Our field experiments suggest that Bechstein's bats make hierarchical use of different cognitive processes when localizing day roosts. More generally, our study underlines that evaluating different cues under natural conditions is fundamental to understanding how natural selection has shaped the cognitive processes used for localizing resources.