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Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats
Bats are primary consumers of nocturnal insects, disperse nutrients across landscapes, and are excellent bioindicators of an ecosystem’s health, however four of the seventeen Great British species are listed as declining. In this study we aim to investigate the link between bat guano morphology and...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145103/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32271770 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230865 |
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author | Ware, Roselyn L. Garrod, Benjamin Macdonald, Hannah Allaby, Robin G. |
author_facet | Ware, Roselyn L. Garrod, Benjamin Macdonald, Hannah Allaby, Robin G. |
author_sort | Ware, Roselyn L. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Bats are primary consumers of nocturnal insects, disperse nutrients across landscapes, and are excellent bioindicators of an ecosystem’s health, however four of the seventeen Great British species are listed as declining. In this study we aim to investigate the link between bat guano morphology and diet, specifically looking at the ability to predict 1) species, 2) dietary guild, and 3) bat size, using guano morphology alone. Guano from 16 bat species sampled from across Great Britain were analysed to determine various morphological metrics. These data were coupled with diet data obtained by an extensive literature review. It was found that guano morphology overlapped too much to make predictions on the species of bat which deposited the guano, however, in some cases, it could be used to indicate the dietary guild to which the bat belonged. In general, guano morphology seems more correlated to diet than species. This enables the identification of the most important prey taxa within a local environment; a crucial step for informing conservation strategies. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7145103 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-71451032020-04-14 Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats Ware, Roselyn L. Garrod, Benjamin Macdonald, Hannah Allaby, Robin G. PLoS One Research Article Bats are primary consumers of nocturnal insects, disperse nutrients across landscapes, and are excellent bioindicators of an ecosystem’s health, however four of the seventeen Great British species are listed as declining. In this study we aim to investigate the link between bat guano morphology and diet, specifically looking at the ability to predict 1) species, 2) dietary guild, and 3) bat size, using guano morphology alone. Guano from 16 bat species sampled from across Great Britain were analysed to determine various morphological metrics. These data were coupled with diet data obtained by an extensive literature review. It was found that guano morphology overlapped too much to make predictions on the species of bat which deposited the guano, however, in some cases, it could be used to indicate the dietary guild to which the bat belonged. In general, guano morphology seems more correlated to diet than species. This enables the identification of the most important prey taxa within a local environment; a crucial step for informing conservation strategies. Public Library of Science 2020-04-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7145103/ /pubmed/32271770 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230865 Text en © 2020 Ware et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Ware, Roselyn L. Garrod, Benjamin Macdonald, Hannah Allaby, Robin G. Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats |
title | Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats |
title_full | Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats |
title_fullStr | Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats |
title_full_unstemmed | Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats |
title_short | Guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in British bats |
title_sort | guano morphology has the potential to inform conservation strategies in british bats |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7145103/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32271770 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0230865 |
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