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Divergent trophic levels in two cryptic sibling bat species

  • Behavioral ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Changes in dietary preferences in animal species play a pivotal role in niche specialization. Here, we investigate how divergence of foraging behaviour affects the trophic position of animals and thereby their role for ecosystem processes. As a model, we used two closely related bat species, Myotis myotis and M. blythii oxygnathus, that are morphologically very similar and share the same roosts, but show clear behavioural divergence in habitat selection and foraging. Based on previous dietary studies on synanthropic populations in Central Europe, we hypothesised that M. myotis would mainly prey on predatory arthropods (i.e., secondary consumers) while M. blythii oxygnathus would eat herbivorous insects (i.e., primary consumers). We thus expected that the sibling bats would be at different trophic levels. We first conducted a validation experiment with captive bats in the laboratory and measured isotopic discrimination, i.e., the stepwise enrichment of heavy in relation to light isotopes between consumer and diet, in insectivorous bats for the first time. We then tested our trophic level hypothesis in the field at an ancient site of natural coexistence for the two species (Bulgaria, south-eastern Europe) using stable isotope analyses. As predicted, secondary consumer arthropods (carabid beetles; Coleoptera) were more enriched in 15N than primary consumer arthropods (tettigoniids; Orthoptera), and accordingly wing tissue of M. myotis was more enriched in 15N than tissue of M. blythii oxygnathus. According to a Bayesian mixing model, M. blythii oxygnathus indeed fed almost exclusively on primary consumers (98%), while M. myotis ate a mix of secondary (50%), but also, and to a considerable extent, primary consumers (50%). Our study highlights that morphologically almost identical, sympatric sibling species may forage at divergent trophic levels, and, thus may have different effects on ecosystem processes.

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Notes

  1. There is current debate whether the European lesser mouse-eared bats should be regarded as a subspecies of the central Asian M. blythii (and hence M. blythii oxygnathus) or as separate species (then M. oxygnathus) (Ruedi and Mayer 2001; Simmons 2005; Dietz et al. 2007; see also Bogdanowicz et al. 2009). Here, we go with the first, more conservative, option. And we note that, in the literature of the past decades, the European lesser mouse-eared bat has typically been called M. blythii.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Rusenski Lom Nature Park and its director Ing. Milko Belberov for cooperation and logistic help. Special thanks go to the park’s former biodiversity expert Dr. Teodora Ivanova as well as to Hristiana Popova-Stomjonkova for enthusiastic support and friendship. We thank Dr. Borislav Guéorguiev, Dr. Dragan Chobanov and Dr. Arne Lehmann for help with insect identification, Renate Heckel and Leonie Baier for sample collection in Seewiesen, and Karin Sörgel and Doris Fichte for sample preparation and stable isotope analyses. Dr. Elizabeth Yohannes and two anonymous referees provided helpful comments on the manuscript. The bats at the Seewiesen MPI were kept under licence of Landratsamt Starnberg (# 301c.4 V-sä). Capture and sampling of bats in Bulgaria was performed under licence of the Bulgarian Ministerstvo na Okolnata Sreda i Vodita (# 57, 18. 04. 2006). This study was funded by the Max Planck Society (BMS) and the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (CCV).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sensory Ecology Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 82319, Seewiesen, Germany

    Björn M. Siemers, Stefan Greif & Ivailo Borissov

  2. Bulgarian Bat Research and Protection Group, National Museum of Natural History, Tzar Osvoboditel 1, 1000, Sofia, Bulgaria

    Ivailo Borissov

  3. Animal Behavior, Freie Universität Berlin, Takustraße 6, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Silke L. Voigt-Heucke

  4. Evolutionary Ecology Research Group, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Str. 17, 10315, Berlin, Germany

    Christian C. Voigt

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  1. Björn M. Siemers
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  2. Stefan Greif
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  4. Silke L. Voigt-Heucke
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Correspondence to Björn M. Siemers.

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Communicated by Elisabeth Kalko.

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Siemers, B.M., Greif, S., Borissov, I. et al. Divergent trophic levels in two cryptic sibling bat species. Oecologia 166, 69–78 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-1940-1

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