Data from: Seasonal shifts in tropical insect ephemerality drive bat foraging effort

Kohles JE, Page RA, Wikelski M, Dechmann DKN. 2024. Data from: Seasonal shifts in tropical insect ephemerality drive bat foraging effort. Movebank Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.297

Abstract

Animal foraging is fundamentally shaped by food distribution and availability. However, the quantification of spatiotemporal food distribution is rare but crucial to explain variation in foraging behavior among species, populations, or individuals. Clumped but ephemeral food sources enable rapid energy intake but require increased effort to find, can generate variable foraging success, and force animals to forage more efficiently. We quantified seasonal shifts in the availability of such resources to test the proximate effects of food distribution on changes in movement patterns. The neotropical lesser bulldog bat (Noctilio albiventris) forages in a seasonal environment on emerging aquatic insects, whose numbers peak shortly after dusk. We GPS-tracked bats and quantified nocturnal insect distribution in their foraging area using floating camera traps across wet and dry seasons. Surprisingly, insects were 75% less abundant and swarms were 60% shorter lived (more ephemeral) in the wet season. As a result, wet season bats had to fly twice as far (total and maximum distance from roost distances) and 45% longer (duration) per night. Within foraging bouts, wet season bats spent less time in each insect patch and searched longer for subsequent patches, reflecting increased temporal ephemerality and decreased spatial predictability of insects. Our results highlight the tight link between foraging effort and spatiotemporal distribution of food, and the influence of constraints imposed by reproduction on behavioral flexibility and adaptations to the highly dynamic resource landscapes of mobile prey. Examining foraging behavior in light of spatiotemporal dynamics of resources can help predict how animals respond to shifts in food availability caused by escalating environmental changes.

Keywords

Noctilio albiventris, animal movement, animal tracking, behavioral plasticity, GPS logger, lesser bulldog bat, tropical ecology

Taxa

Taxon

Noctilio albiventris

lesser bulldog bat

Sensors

Sensor

GPS

DOIs of related Publications

https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.297

URI

https://datarepository.movebank.org/handle/10255/move.1666

BibTex

@misc{001/1_297,
  title = {Data from: Seasonal shifts in tropical insect ephemerality drive bat foraging effort},
  author = {Kohles, JE and Page, RA and Wikelski, M and Dechmann, DKN},
  year = {2024},
  URL = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.297},
  doi = {doi:10.5441/001/1.297},
  publisher = {Movebank data repository}
}

RIS

TY  - DATA
ID  - doi:10.5441/001/1.297
T1  - Data from: Seasonal shifts in tropical insect ephemerality drive bat foraging effort
AU  - Kohles, Jenna E.
AU  - Page, Rachel A.
AU  - Wikelski, Martin
AU  - Dechmann, Dina K.N.
Y1  - 2024/06/26
KW  - Noctilio albiventris
KW  - animal foraging
KW  - animal movement
KW  - animal tracking
KW  - behavioral plasticity
KW  - GPS logger
KW  - lesser bulldog bat
KW  - tropical ecology
KW  - Noctilio albiventris
PB  - Movebank data repository
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.297
DO  - doi:10.5441/001/1.297
ER  -

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