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Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats

Bats play important ecological roles in tropical systems, yet how these communities are structured is still poorly understood. Our study explores the structure of African bat communities using morphological characters to define the morphospace occupied by these bats and stable isotope analysis to de...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Monadjem, Ara, Kane, Adam, Taylor, Peter, Richards, Leigh R., Hall, Grant, Woodborne, Stephan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304110/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30662720
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180849
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author Monadjem, Ara
Kane, Adam
Taylor, Peter
Richards, Leigh R.
Hall, Grant
Woodborne, Stephan
author_facet Monadjem, Ara
Kane, Adam
Taylor, Peter
Richards, Leigh R.
Hall, Grant
Woodborne, Stephan
author_sort Monadjem, Ara
collection PubMed
description Bats play important ecological roles in tropical systems, yet how these communities are structured is still poorly understood. Our study explores the structure of African bat communities using morphological characters to define the morphospace occupied by these bats and stable isotope analysis to define their dietary niche breadth. We compared two communities, one in rainforest (Liberia) and one in savannah (South Africa), and asked whether the greater richness in the rainforest was due to more species ‘packing’ into the same morphospace and trophic space than bats from the savannah, or some other arrangement. In the rainforest, bats occupied a larger area in morphospace and species packing was higher than in the savannah; although this difference disappeared when comparing insectivorous bats only. There were also differences in morphospace occupied by different foraging groups (aerial, edge, clutter and fruitbat). Stable isotope analysis revealed that the range of δ(13)C values was almost double in rainforest than in savannah indicating a greater range of utilization of basal C(3) and C(4) resources in the former site, covering primary productivity from both these sources. The ranges in δ(15)N, however, were similar between the two habitats suggesting a similar number of trophic levels. Niche breadth, as defined by either standard ellipse area or convex hull, was greater for the bat community in rainforest than in savannah, with all four foraging groups having larger niche breadths in the former than the latter. The higher inter-species morphospace and niche breadth in forest bats suggest that species packing is not necessarily competitive. By employing morphometrics and stable isotope analysis, we have shown that the rainforest bat community packs more species in morphospace and uses a larger niche breadth than the one in savannah.
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spelling pubmed-63041102019-01-18 Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats Monadjem, Ara Kane, Adam Taylor, Peter Richards, Leigh R. Hall, Grant Woodborne, Stephan R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) Bats play important ecological roles in tropical systems, yet how these communities are structured is still poorly understood. Our study explores the structure of African bat communities using morphological characters to define the morphospace occupied by these bats and stable isotope analysis to define their dietary niche breadth. We compared two communities, one in rainforest (Liberia) and one in savannah (South Africa), and asked whether the greater richness in the rainforest was due to more species ‘packing’ into the same morphospace and trophic space than bats from the savannah, or some other arrangement. In the rainforest, bats occupied a larger area in morphospace and species packing was higher than in the savannah; although this difference disappeared when comparing insectivorous bats only. There were also differences in morphospace occupied by different foraging groups (aerial, edge, clutter and fruitbat). Stable isotope analysis revealed that the range of δ(13)C values was almost double in rainforest than in savannah indicating a greater range of utilization of basal C(3) and C(4) resources in the former site, covering primary productivity from both these sources. The ranges in δ(15)N, however, were similar between the two habitats suggesting a similar number of trophic levels. Niche breadth, as defined by either standard ellipse area or convex hull, was greater for the bat community in rainforest than in savannah, with all four foraging groups having larger niche breadths in the former than the latter. The higher inter-species morphospace and niche breadth in forest bats suggest that species packing is not necessarily competitive. By employing morphometrics and stable isotope analysis, we have shown that the rainforest bat community packs more species in morphospace and uses a larger niche breadth than the one in savannah. The Royal Society 2018-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC6304110/ /pubmed/30662720 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180849 Text en © 2018 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biology (Whole Organism)
Monadjem, Ara
Kane, Adam
Taylor, Peter
Richards, Leigh R.
Hall, Grant
Woodborne, Stephan
Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats
title Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats
title_full Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats
title_fullStr Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats
title_full_unstemmed Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats
title_short Morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats
title_sort morphology and stable isotope analysis demonstrate different structuring of bat communities in rainforest and savannah habitats
topic Biology (Whole Organism)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304110/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30662720
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.180849
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