We studied the foraging behaviour of the dawn bat Eonycteris spelaea, a cave roosting nectarivore widespread in SE Asia, and principal pollinator of economically important crops. We radio-tracked 17 individuals for five to 19 nights over a three month period. The bats were from three cave colonies in agricultural habitats in southern Thailand. They traveled between one and 17.9 km ( ± SD: 4.4 km ± 5.07, median = 2.34) from their roosting cave to food sources. The mean home-range size of the individuals varied with the method used in its calculation from 518.4 ha (100% Minimum Convex Polygon, MCP) to 564.5 ha (100% Local Convex Hull method, LoCoH) and 460.8 ha (95% Kernel density estimation, KDE). The mean size of foraging areas used by the bats also varied according to the method of calculation from 14.26 ha (100% MCP), 13.25 ha (100% LoCoH) and 38.52 ha (95% KDE) and accounted for 21.9%, 20.08% and 40.5% of the respective home-range size. The bats foraged in one to three foraging areas each night. The greatest distance between feeding trees varied between 0.25 and 8 km (mean 1.25 km ± 2.19). Those bats with multiple foraging areas moved from patch to patch of Durio zibethinus and did not return to a previously visited patch, whereas those feeding on Parkia repeated their visits to several patches in a single night. Ninety percent of foraging areas used by the radio-tagged individuals were in managed habitat such as fruit orchards and yards of houses to which the bats maintained strong site fidelity.
How to translate text using browser tools
1 December 2015
Home-Range and Foraging Areas of the Dawn Bat Eonycteris spelaea in Agricultural Areas of Thailand
Pushpa Raj Acharya,
Paul A. Racey,
Sunthorn Sotthibandhu,
Sara Bumrungsri
ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE
Acta Chiropterologica
Vol. 17 • No. 2
December 2015
Vol. 17 • No. 2
December 2015
Eonycteris spelaea
fidelity
foraging areas
home range
radio-tracking