Coexistence of two sympatric and morphologically similar bat species Rhinolophus a nis and Rhinolophus pearsoni  

Coexistence of two sympatric and morphologically similar bat species Rhinolophus affinis and Rhinolophus pearsoni

作　　者：Tinglei Jiang Jiang Feng Keping Sun Jing Wang 

机构地区：[1]College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China

出　　处：《Progress in Natural Science:Materials International》2008年第5期523-532,共10页自然科学进展·国际材料（英文版）

基　　金：The work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China （Grant No．0370261)；the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University(Grant No．NECT-04-0309)；the Key Project of Education Department （Grant No．1042571 ）； the Outstanding Youth Foundation of Jilin Province (Grant No．20030114)．

摘　　要：Ecologists have long focused on the coexistence of sympatric species. Here, we investigated two horseshoe bat species, Rhinolophus affinis and Rhinolophus pearsoni inhabited in the same cave, for their foraging strategies, niche differentiation, prey selection, and their coexistence status. These two species of horseshoe bats were different in the dominant frequency of their echolocation calls, but similar in their morphology. We found evidence for prey selectivity although there was a high degree of overlap in prey categories and sizes. R. affinis and R. pearsoni foraged on 16 and 7 categories insects, respectively, with Pyralidae, Geometridae, Melolonthidae dominating their diets. The degree of trophic niche overlap was 0.69. Pairwise comparisons suggested that there was no obvious differentiation in prey categories and size. However, high prey availability in the environment （Simpson diversity index = 0.79 and Margalef richness index = 4.12） contributed to their coexistence by dampening the interspecific competition. Since there are one or more mechanisms facil- itating species coexistence in a community, our results suggest that the spatial niche differentiation in foraging rnicrohabitats and in foraging habitats at landscape scale may promote the coexistence of the two bat species. However, additional field data are needed to confirm this speculation.Ecologists have long focused on the coexistence of sympatric species. Here, we investigated two horseshoe bat species, Rhinolophus a nis and Rhinolophus pearsoni inhabited in the same cave, for their foraging strategies, niche di erentiation, prey selection, and their coexistence status. These two species of horseshoe bats were di erent in the dominant frequency of their echolocation calls, but similar in their morphology. We found evidence for prey selectivity although there was a high degree of overlap in prey categories and sizes. R. a nis and R. pearsoni foraged on 16 and 7 categories insects, respectively, with Pyralidae, Geometridae, Melolonthidae dominating their diets. The degree of trophic niche overlap was 0.69. Pairwise comparisons suggested that there was no obvious di erentiation in prey categories and size. However, high prey availability in the environment (Simpson diversity index = 0.79 and Margalef richness index = 4.12) contributed to their coexistence by dampening the interspeci c competition. Since there are one or more mechanisms facil- itating species coexistence in a community, our results suggest that the spatial niche di erentiation in foraging microhabitats and in for- aging habitats at landscape scale may promote the coexistence of the two bat species. However, additional eld data are needed to con rm this speculation.

关 键 词：Bats Species coexistence Foraging strategies Niche differentiation Prey richness 

分 类 号：Q14[生物学—生态学]