Does interspecific competition drive patterns of habitat use in desert bat communities?
Does interspecific competition drive patterns of habitat use in desert bat communities?
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DOI：
10.1007/s00442-011-1995-z
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发表时间：
2011-10-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Saltz, David
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Razgour, Orly;Korine, Carmi;Saltz, David
水体是食虫蝙蝠的重要觅食栖息地。由于水在干旱环境中是稀缺且有限的资源，开放水域可能会对沙漠蝙蝠群落产生结构影响，导致蝙蝠活动的时间或空间划分。通过声学监测，我们研究了沙漠池塘上食虫蝙蝠的时空活动模式，并假设同域蝙蝠物种根据种间竞争相互作用来划分池塘上方的觅食空间。我们使用了竞争的间接衡量标准（生态位重叠和回归方法的竞争系数），并测试了池塘栖息地选择和池塘活动高峰时间的差异。我们研究了蝙蝠物种活动的变化对其潜在竞争对手的影响。我们发现种间竞争会影响蝙蝠群落结构和活动模式。竞争物种在空间上划分它们对池塘的使用，即每个物种都与不同的池塘大小和水周期（池塘蓄水的月数）类别相关，在时间上也如此，即它们的活动在夜间的不同时间达到峰值。临时池塘的干涸增加了永久性池塘的时间分区。池塘上物种的活动因竞争对手的存在或不存在而产生的差异进一步支持了种间竞争在构建沙漠蝙蝠群落中的作用。我们认为，干旱环境中食虫蝙蝠的栖息地利用和夜间活动模式反映了首选池塘类型或活动时间的选择与竞争性相互作用所造成的限制之间的权衡。
Bodies of water are a key foraging habitat for insectivorous bats. Since water is a scarce and limiting resource in arid environments, bodies of open water may have a structuring effect on desert bat communities, resulting in temporal or spatial partitioning of bat activity. Using acoustic monitoring, we studied the spatial and temporal activity patterns of insectivorous bats over desert ponds, and hypothesised that sympatric bat species partition the foraging space above ponds based on interspecific competitive interactions. We used indirect measures of competition (niche overlap and competition coefficients from the regression method) and tested for differences in pond habitat selection and peak activity time over ponds. We examined the effect of changes in the activity of bat species on their potential competitors. We found that interspecific competition affects bat community structure and activity patterns. Competing species partitioned their use of ponds spatially, whereby each species was associated with different pond size and hydroperiod (the number of months a pond holds water) categories, as well as temporally, whereby their activity peaked at different hours of the night. The drying out of temporary ponds increased temporal partitioning over permanent ponds. Differences in the activity of species over ponds in response to the presence or absence of their competitors lend further support to the role of interspecific competition in structuring desert bat communities. We suggest that habitat use and night activity pattern of insectivorous bats in arid environments reflect the trade-offs between selection of preferred pond type or activity time and constraints posed by competitive interactions.