Table for five, please: Dietary partitioning in boreal bats

Abstract

Differences in diet can explain resource partitioning in apparently similar, sympatric species. Here, we analyzed 1,252 fecal droppings from five species (Eptesicus nilssonii, Myotis brandtii, M. daubentonii, M. mystacinus, and Plecotus auritus) to reveal their dietary niches using fecal DNA metabarcoding. We identified nearly 550 prey species in 13 arthropod orders. Two main orders (Diptera and Lepidoptera) formed the majority of the diet for all species, constituting roughly 80%–90% of the diet. All five species had different dietary assemblages. We also found significant differences in the size of prey species between the bat species. Our results on diet composition remain mostly unchanged when using either read counts as a proxy for quantitative diet or presence–absence data, indicating a strong biological pattern. We conclude that although bats share major components in their ecology (nocturnal life style, insectivory, and echolocation), species differ in feeding behavior, suggesting bats may have distinctive evolutionary strategies. Diet analysis helps illuminate life history traits of various species, adding to sparse ecological knowledge, which can be utilized in conservation planning.

Diversification rates have no effect on the convergent evolution of foraging strategies in the most speciose genus of bats, Myotis *

“…), but evidence shows that this is very rare (Vesterinen et al. ). Therefore, such slight shifts may have a biological meaning showing evidence for skull evolution toward a different optimum of occasional piscivory in Myotis .…”

“…Three of those regimes include only one species each and one regime includes the rest of the species. One of the regimes with a single taxon corresponds to M. daubentonii that occasionally may incorporate fish in its diet (Siemers et al 2001), but evidence shows that this is very rare (Vesterinen et al 2018). Therefore, such slight shifts may have a biological meaning showing evidence for skull evolution toward a different optimum of occasional piscivory in Myotis.…”

From feces to data: A metabarcoding method for analyzing consumed and available prey in a bird‐insect food web

“…As both nestling feces and insect frass can be collected easily using harmless and unobtrusive methods, this methodology is ideal for many applications. With advances in sequencing technologies, detecting prey DNA from predator feces has recently become a norm in diet studies of many insectivorous animals (e.g., Clare et al, 2009;Wirta et al, 2015;Kaunisto et al, 2017;Vesterinen et al, 2018). Equipped with another new tool to dissect the diet of animals, we hope that our study opens a new wave of research utilizing both available and consumed prey.…”

“…With advances in sequencing technologies, detecting prey DNA from predator feces has recently become a norm in diet studies of many insectivorous animals (e.g., Clare et al, 2009;Wirta et al, 2015;Kaunisto et al, 2017;Vesterinen et al, 2018). As both nestling feces and insect frass can be collected easily using harmless and unobtrusive methods, this methodology is ideal for many applications.…”

“…In addition, the availability of potential invertebrate prey in the birds' habitat is also monitored using the same methods. The prey consumed by the predators can be determined from prey DNA in the predators' feces (e.g., Vesterinen, Lilley, Laine, & Wahlberg, 2013;Vesterinen et al, 2016;Vesterinen, Puisto, & Blomberg, 2018;Wirta et al, 2015). Correspondingly, the available prey species (Lepidoptera) can be determined by collecting the feces of larvae (hereafter frass).…”