How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble
Predators that depend on patchily distributed prey face the problem of finding food patches where they can successfully compete for prey. While the competitive exclusion principle suggests that species can only coexist if their ecological niches show considerable differences, newer theory proposes t...
Published in: | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution |
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ftleibnizopen:oai:oai.leibnizopen.de:3uwx1IYBdbrxVwz6I3un 2023-05-15T17:48:39+02:00 How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble Roeleke, Manuel Johannsen, Lilith Voigt, Christian 2018 https://repository.publisso.de/resource/frl:6415173 https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2018.00101 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00101/full#h12 eng eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2018(6):101 2018 ftleibnizopen https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2018.00101 2023-03-13T00:22:52Z Predators that depend on patchily distributed prey face the problem of finding food patches where they can successfully compete for prey. While the competitive exclusion principle suggests that species can only coexist if their ecological niches show considerable differences, newer theory proposes that local coexistence can be facilitated by so-called stabilizing and equalizing mechanisms. A prerequisite to identify such mechanisms is the understanding of the strength and the nature of competition (i.e., interference or exploitation). We studied the interaction between two open-space foraging bats by testing if common noctule bats Nyctalus noctula shift their space use in response to simulated aggregations of conspecifics or heterospecific Pipistrellus nathusii. When confronted with playbacks of heterospecifics, N. noctula increased their activity in early summer, but decreased activity in late summer. This pattern was accompanied by a decrease in the proportion of large insects in late summer, suggesting a more intense competition for food in late compared to early summer. When confronted with playbacks of conspecifics, N. noctula did not change their activity, irrespective of season. Our results indicate that in early summer, intraspecific competition is more severe than interspecific competition for insectivorous bats. Likely, conspecifics engage in interference competition for flight space, and may suffer from reduced prey detectability as echolocation calls of conspecifics interfere with each other. During insect rich times, interspecific competition on the other hand may be mediated by fine scale vertical partitioning and the use non-interfering echolocation frequencies. In contrast, when food is scarce in late summer, bats may engage in exploitation competition. Our data suggests that N. noctula avoid aggregations of more agile bats like P. nathusii, probably due to impeded hunting success. Yet, as fast and efficient fliers, N. noctula may be able to escape this disadvantage by exploiting more distant ... Other/Unknown Material Nyctalus noctula Pipistrellus nathusii LeibnizOpen (The Leibniz Association) Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 6 |
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LeibnizOpen (The Leibniz Association) |
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ftleibnizopen |
language |
English |
description |
Predators that depend on patchily distributed prey face the problem of finding food patches where they can successfully compete for prey. While the competitive exclusion principle suggests that species can only coexist if their ecological niches show considerable differences, newer theory proposes that local coexistence can be facilitated by so-called stabilizing and equalizing mechanisms. A prerequisite to identify such mechanisms is the understanding of the strength and the nature of competition (i.e., interference or exploitation). We studied the interaction between two open-space foraging bats by testing if common noctule bats Nyctalus noctula shift their space use in response to simulated aggregations of conspecifics or heterospecific Pipistrellus nathusii. When confronted with playbacks of heterospecifics, N. noctula increased their activity in early summer, but decreased activity in late summer. This pattern was accompanied by a decrease in the proportion of large insects in late summer, suggesting a more intense competition for food in late compared to early summer. When confronted with playbacks of conspecifics, N. noctula did not change their activity, irrespective of season. Our results indicate that in early summer, intraspecific competition is more severe than interspecific competition for insectivorous bats. Likely, conspecifics engage in interference competition for flight space, and may suffer from reduced prey detectability as echolocation calls of conspecifics interfere with each other. During insect rich times, interspecific competition on the other hand may be mediated by fine scale vertical partitioning and the use non-interfering echolocation frequencies. In contrast, when food is scarce in late summer, bats may engage in exploitation competition. Our data suggests that N. noctula avoid aggregations of more agile bats like P. nathusii, probably due to impeded hunting success. Yet, as fast and efficient fliers, N. noctula may be able to escape this disadvantage by exploiting more distant ... |
author |
Roeleke, Manuel Johannsen, Lilith Voigt, Christian |
spellingShingle |
Roeleke, Manuel Johannsen, Lilith Voigt, Christian How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble |
author_facet |
Roeleke, Manuel Johannsen, Lilith Voigt, Christian |
author_sort |
Roeleke, Manuel |
title |
How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble |
title_short |
How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble |
title_full |
How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble |
title_fullStr |
How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble |
title_full_unstemmed |
How Bats Escape the Competitive Exclusion Principle—Seasonal Shift From Intraspecific to Interspecific Competition Drives Space Use in a Bat Ensemble |
title_sort |
how bats escape the competitive exclusion principle—seasonal shift from intraspecific to interspecific competition drives space use in a bat ensemble |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://repository.publisso.de/resource/frl:6415173 https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2018.00101 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2018.00101/full#h12 |
genre |
Nyctalus noctula Pipistrellus nathusii |
genre_facet |
Nyctalus noctula Pipistrellus nathusii |
op_source |
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2018(6):101 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2018.00101 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
6 |
_version_ |
1766154793578921984 |