Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:16:49.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feeding strategy and activity budget of the frugivorous bat Carollia perspicillata (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) in French Guiana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

P. Charles-Dominique
P. Charles-Dominique
Affiliation:
ECOTROP and URA 1183, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire d'Ecologie Générate, Muséum National d'Histoire Nalurelle, 4 avenue du Petit Château91800 Brunoy, France.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The frugivorous phyllostomid bat Carollia perspicillata is closely associated with specific fruits which are found and picked in flight, then eaten at a feeding roost. Each fruit eaten corresponds to a single flight. An apparatus designed for this study permits the simultancous tracking of 10 bats equipped with double rhythm transmitters (slow rate corresponding to resting position and rapid rate to flying bouts). (1) The number of flights, (2) the percentage time spent flying and (3) the range of activity were recorded for different categories of animals during two periods of fruit production. Heavier males displayed high activity, while other males, non-breeding females and females in early pregnancy displayed a similar pattern of flying behaviour. Full-term pregnant females and lactating females performed almost as many flying bouts as non-reproductive females, but these flights were much shorter. This unexpected feeding strategy can be interpreted as a means of shifting energy to reproductive effort from exploratory behaviour (non-breeding females performed longer flights which combine the survey of environment and the fruit collection). This strategy, based upon the optimization of flying bouts, is in contrast to those of non-flying mammals and probably is only compatible with periods of high food production.

Keywords

Carollia perspicillataChiroptcrafeeding strategyFrench GuianafrugivoryPhyllostomidaeradiotelemetryreproductiontime budget
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , May 1991 , pp. 243 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

LITERATURE CITED

Atramentovvicz, M. 1982. Influence du milieu sur l'activité locomotrice et la reproduction de Caluromjs philander (L.). Revue d'Ecologie (Terre et vie) 36:373–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atramentovvicz, M. 1986. Etude comparée de la dynamique de population de trois Didelphidae sympalriques de Guyane. Biotropica 18:136–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonaccorso, F. J. 1979. Foraging and reproductive ecology in a Panamanian Bat community. Bulletin of Florida Stale Museum, Biological Science 24:359–408.Google Scholar
Boye, M., Cabaussel, G. & Perrot, Y. 1979. Climatologie. In Atlas de la Guyane, C.N.R.S. et ORSTOM, Paris.Google Scholar
Carpenter, R. E. 1975. Flight metabolism in flying foxes. Pp. 883–890 in Wu, T. Y. T., Brokaw, E. J. & Brennen, C. (eds). Swimming and Flying in Nature Vol. 2. Plenum Press, NY.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles-Dominique, P. 1986. Inter-relations between frugivorous vertebrates and pioneer plants: Cecropia, Birds and bats in French Guiana, Pp. 119–135 in Estrada, A. & Fleming, T. H. (eds). Fyugivores and Seed Dispersal. Dr. W. Junk, Dordrecht.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Charles-Dominique, P., Atramentovvicz, M., Charles-Dominique, M., Gerard, H., Hladik., A., Hladik., C. M. & Prevost, M. F. 1981. Les Mammiferes (Yugivores arboricoles nocturnes d'une Forêt guyanaise: inter-relations plantes-animaux. Revue d'Écologie (Terre et Vie) 35:341–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, H. M. & Charles-Dominique, P. 1985. A microcomputer data acquisition-telemetry system: a study of activity in the Bat Artibeus lituratus. Journal of Wildlife Management 49:850–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleming, T. H. 1981. Fecundity, fruiting pattern, and seed dispersal in Piper amalago (Piperaceae), a bat-dispersed tropical shrub. Oecologia 51:42–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fleming, T. H. 1982. Foraging strategies of plant-visiting bats. Pp. 287–325 in Kunz, T. H. (ed.). Ecology of Bats. Plenum Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleming, T. H. 1988. The Short-Tailed Fruit Bat - A study in Plant-Animal interactions. The University of Chicago Press, 365 pp.Google Scholar
Fleming, T. H. & Heithaus, E. R. 1981. Frugivorous bats, seed shadows, and the structure of tropical forests. Biotropica 13:45–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleming, T. H., Heithaus, E. R. & Sawyer, Vv. B. 1977. An experimental analysis of the food localion behaviour of frugivorous bats, seed shadows and the structure of tropical forests. Biotropica supplement of Reproductive Botany 13:45–53.Google Scholar
Heithaus, E. R., Fleming, T. H. & Opler, P. A. 1975. Foraging patterns and resource utilization in seven species of bats in a seasonal tropical forest. Ecology 56:841–854.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heithaus, E. R. & Fleming, T. H. 1978. Foraging movements of a frugivorous bat, Carollia perspicillata (Phyllostomatidae). Ecological Monographs 48:127–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lescure, J. P., Puig, H., Riera, B., Leclerc, D., Beeckman, A. & Beneteau, A. 1983. La phytomasse épigée d'une forêt dense en Guyane franchise. Ada Oecologica (Oecologia Generalis) 4:237–251.Google Scholar
Morrison, D. W. 1978a. Foraging ecology and energetics of the frugivorous bat Artibeusjamaicensis. Ecology 59:716–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, D. W. 1978b. Lunar phobia in a Neotropical fruit bat, Artibeus jamaicensis (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae). Animal Behavior 26:852–855.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, D. W. 1980. Efficiency of food utilization by fruit bats. Oecologia 45:270–273.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pijl (van der), L. 1957. The dispersal of plants by bats (Chiropterochory). Ada Botanica Nederlandica 6:291–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pijl (van der), L. 1966. Ecological aspects of fruit evolution. A functional study of dispersal organs. Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amsterdams (Ser. C.), 49:596–640.Google Scholar
Pine, R. H. 1972. The bats of the genus Carollia. Technical Monographs 8. Texas A & M University, 125 pp.Google Scholar
Sabatier, D. (1985). Saisonnalité et déterminisme du pic de fructification en forêt guyanaise. Revue d'Ecologie (Terre et Vie), 40:289–320.Google Scholar
Thomas, S. P. 1975. Metabolism during flight in two species of bats, Phyllostomus hastatus and Pleropus gouldii. Journal of Experimental Biology 63:273–293.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed