Article (Scientific journals)
Food for everyone: Differential feeding habits of cryptic bat species inferred from DNA metabarcoding.
Andriollo, Tommy; Michaux, Johan; Ruedi, Manuel
2021In Molecular Ecology, 30 (18), p. 4584-4600
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Keywords :
Bats; cryptic species; diet analysis; metabarcoding; niche partitioning; trophic ecology; Animals; DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic; Feeding Behavior; Habits; Predatory Behavior; Chiroptera/genetics; Moths; Chiroptera; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Genetics
Abstract :
[en] Ecological theory postulates that niches of co-occurring species must differ along some ecological dimensions in order to allow their stable coexistence. Yet, many biological systems challenge this competitive exclusion principle. Insectivorous bats from the Northern Hemisphere typically form local assemblages of multiple species sharing highly similar functional traits and pertaining to identical feeding guilds. Although their trophic niche can be accessed with unprecedented details using genetic identification of prey, the underlying mechanisms of resource partitioning remain vastly unexplored. Here, we studied the differential diet of three closely-related bat species of the genus Plecotus in sympatry and throughout their entire breeding season using DNA metabarcoding. Even at such a small geographic scale, we identified strong seasonal and spatial variation of their diet composition at both intra- and interspecific levels. Indeed, while the different bats fed on a distinct array of prey during spring, they showed higher trophic niche overlap during summer and fall, when all three species switched their hunting behaviour to feed on few temporarily abundant moths. By recovering 19 ecological traits for over 600 prey species, we further inferred that each bat species used different feeding grounds and hunting techniques, suggesting that niche partitioning was primarily habitat-driven. The two most-closely related bat species exhibited very distinct foraging habitat preferences, while the third, more distantly-related species was more generalist. These results highlight the need of temporally comprehensive samples to fully understand species coexistence, and that valuable information can be derived from the taxonomic identity of prey obtained by metabarcoding approaches.
Disciplines :
Zoology
Author, co-author :
Andriollo, Tommy ;  Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology, Natural History Museum of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland ; Section of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Michaux, Johan  ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences de la vie > Laboratoire de génétique de la conservation ; CIRAD, Agirs Unit, TA C- 22/E- Campus international de Baillarguet, Montpellier Cedex 5, France
Ruedi, Manuel ;  Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology, Natural History Museum of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Language :
English
Title :
Food for everyone: Differential feeding habits of cryptic bat species inferred from DNA metabarcoding.
Publication date :
2021
Journal title :
Molecular Ecology
ISSN :
0962-1083
eISSN :
1365-294X
Publisher :
John Wiley and Sons Inc, England
Volume :
30
Issue :
18
Pages :
4584-4600
Peer reviewed :
Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi
Funding text :
We gratefully acknowledge the people who helped us with guano sampling (alphabetically): Lucie Cauwet, Janik Pralong, Carlos Rouco, Cyril Schönbächler, Emmanuel Tardy, Laurent Vallotton and Eric Verelst. We also thank the owners of buildings who rendered this study possible. Lise‐Marie Pigneur (Université de Liège) helped during laboratory work, and Adrien André (Université de Liège) helped with Illumina raw data extraction. Bernard Landry, Charles Lienhard and John Hollier (MHNG) provided useful entomological expertise. Raphaël Covain (MHNG) and Stéphane Dray (CNRS, Lyon) provided valuable expertise on statistical analyses. Antton Alberdi (University of Copenhagen), Jan Pawlowski (University of Geneva), Jean Mariaux and Lionel Monod (MHNG) provided useful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, as well as two anonymous reviewers. Anouk Mentha (Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva) helped with cartographic data. TA also thanks Frédéric Boyer, Eric Coissac, Eric Marcon, Pierre Taberlet and Lucie Zinger for fruitful discussions during the eighth DNA metabarcoding school held in French Guiana. We thank the library of the Natural History Museum of Geneva for access to their collections and the World Bat Library which allowed us to access hard‐to‐find bibliographic resources. This study benefitted from the financial support from the Direction Générale de l'Agriculture et de la Nature de l’État de Genève and the Fondation Ernst & Lucie Schmidheiny.We gratefully acknowledge the people who helped us with guano sampling (alphabetically): Lucie Cauwet, Janik Pralong, Carlos Rouco, Cyril Schönbächler, Emmanuel Tardy, Laurent Vallotton and Eric Verelst. We also thank the owners of buildings who rendered this study possible. Lise-Marie Pigneur (Université de Liège) helped during laboratory work, and Adrien André (Université de Liège) helped with Illumina raw data extraction. Bernard Landry, Charles Lienhard and John Hollier (MHNG) provided useful entomological expertise. Raphaël Covain (MHNG) and Stéphane Dray (CNRS, Lyon) provided valuable expertise on statistical analyses. Antton Alberdi (University of Copenhagen), Jan Pawlowski (University of Geneva), Jean Mariaux and Lionel Monod (MHNG) provided useful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, as well as two anonymous reviewers. Anouk Mentha (Conservatory and Botanical Garden of the City of Geneva) helped with cartographic data. TA also thanks Frédéric Boyer, Eric Coissac, Eric Marcon, Pierre Taberlet and Lucie Zinger for fruitful discussions during the eighth DNA metabarcoding school held in French Guiana. We thank the library of the Natural History Museum of Geneva for access to their collections and the World Bat Library which allowed us to access hard-to-find bibliographic resources. This study benefitted from the financial support from the Direction Générale de l'Agriculture et de la Nature de l’État de Genève and the Fondation Ernst & Lucie Schmidheiny.
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