The thermal niche of Neotropical nectar‐feeding bats: Its evolution and application to predict responses to global warming

Abstract

The thermal niche of a species is one of the main determinants of its ecology and biogeography. In this study, we determined the thermal niche of 23 species of Neotropical nectar‐feeding bats of the subfamily Glossophaginae (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae). We calculated their thermal niches using temperature data obtained from collection records, by generating a distribution curve of the maximum and minimum temperatures per locality, and using the inflection points of the temperature distributions to estimate the species optimal (STZ) and suboptimal (SRZ) zones of the thermal niche. Additionally, by mapping the values of the STZ and SRZ on a phylogeny of the group, we generated a hypothesis of the evolution of the thermal niches of this clade of nectar‐feeding bats. Finally, we used the characteristics of their thermal niches to predict the responses of these organisms to climate change. We found a large variation in the width and limits of the thermal niches of nectar‐feeding bats. Additionally, while the upper limits of the thermal niches varied little among species, their lower limits differ wildly. The ancestral reconstruction of the thermal niche indicated that this group of Neotropical bats evolved under cooler temperatures. The two clades inside the Glossophaginae differ in the evolution of their thermal niches, with most members of the clade Choeronycterines evolving “colder” thermal niches, while the majority of the species in the clade Glossophagines evolving “warmer” thermal niches. By comparing thermal niches with climate change models, we found that all species could be affected by an increase of 1°C in temperature at the end of this century. This suggests that even nocturnal species could suffer important physiological costs from global warming. Our study highlights the value of scientific collections to obtain ecologically significant physiological data for a large number of species.

Morphological and Genetic Variation in Monocultures, Forestry Systems and Wild Populations of Agave maximiliana of Western Mexico: Implications for Its Conservation

“…Thus, overexploitation promotes population decline, leading to some cases of local extinction (e.g., Agave potatorum, Delgado-Lemus et al, 2014). There are no studies addressing the pollination system in A. maximiliana but, given the general aspects described above, i.e., paniculate inflorescences, probable nocturnal anthesis dehiscence and geographic area overlapping with that of Leptonycterys yerbabuenae, L. nivalis Saussure, 1860 (Arita, 1991) and Choeronycteris mexicana Tschudi, 1844 (Arroyo-Cabrales et al, 1982;Ortega-García et al, 2017), we infer a chiropterophilous syndrome, with these bat species as likely pollinators.…”

Climate change, range shifts, and the disruption of a pollinator-plant complex

“…Our results show the same trend; all species distribution models change in a similar fashion by shifting up in elevation. A study of the thermal niche phylogenetic patterns in nectar feeding bats found that the two most cold-adapted species are L. nivalis and Choeronycteris mexicana 41 . Both occur in mountainous regions of Mesoamerica and are particularly sensitive to warming climates.…”

Vulnerability of bat–plant pollination interactions due to environmental change

“…Climatic models project a range of temperature increase of around 1.5–2.8°C (IPCC, 2014); thus, nectarivorous bats are more likely to be challenged by warmer, rather than colder temperatures. Ortega‐García et al, (2017) estimated the thermal niche of several nectar‐feeding bats species using information on occurrence data and found that these species share a similar tolerance to high temperatures, but their lower thermal niche (colder temperatures) is highly variable. However, climatic tolerance (thermal niche width) is positively related to geographic range, where widely distributed species have higher ranges of tolerance to thermal ranges (Ortega‐García et al, 2017).…”