Sánchez-Calderón Ricardo, Chacón-Madrigal Eduardo, Fernandez Otárola Mauricio, Rodríguez-Herrera Bernal
Programa de Posgrado en Biología, Universidad de Costa Rica (SEP), San Pedro de Montes de Oca, San José, 11501-2060, Costa Rica.
School for Field Studies, Center for Ecological Resilience Studies (SFS), Alajuela, Atenas, 20501, Costa Rica.
Oecologia. 2025 May 30;207(6):95. doi: 10.1007/s00442-025-05737-w.
Besides the well-known preferences among some bats with their core plants (Artibeus-Ficus, Carollia-Piper, Sturnira-Solanum), there is a hidden part of the interaction network based on plants dispersed via stomatochory (when seeds are carried on in the mouth and dispersed without been swallowed). Large seeds are not detected by traditional feces analysis used to describe the diet of Neotropical bats. However, looking for feeding roosts can increase the information related to bats and large-seeded plants interaction. Tent-roosting bats are a specialized group of fruit-eating bats that select and modify leaves to be used as roosts or feeding roosts called tents. We worked along the altitudinal gradient of Braulio Carrillo National Park, we looked for tents, checked large seeds presence under them, and performed a network analysis to determine whether bats have focal species of large-seeded plants. We expected tent-roosting bats to vary their fruit consumption of large-seeded plants along this altitudinal gradient. We also made a literature review to provide a reference for the large-seeded plants consumed by tent-roosting bats. Based on the literature review and the two new interactions recorded in this study, there are 71 species of large-seeded plants dispersed by tent-roosting bats. We found 733 tents, 79 tent-feeding roosts, and 670 seeds corresponding to 12 families under those tents. Our study demonstrated that large-seeded plants, such as Spondias radlkoferi, Pourouma minor, and Calophyllum brasiliense, are essential in the bat-plant interaction network, since they complement the interactions that bats have with other plants dispersed via endozoochory.
除了一些蝙蝠对其核心植物（如南美果蝠-榕属植物、食果蝠-胡椒属植物、黄肩蝠-茄属植物）有众所周知的偏好外，基于通过口传扩散（即种子被含在口中携带并在未被吞咽的情况下扩散）的植物，存在一个互动网络的隐藏部分。用于描述新热带蝙蝠饮食的传统粪便分析无法检测到大型种子。然而，寻找觅食栖息地可以增加与蝙蝠和大型种子植物相互作用相关的信息。帐篷栖息蝙蝠是一类专门的食果蝙蝠，它们选择并改造树叶用作栖息地或称为帐篷的觅食栖息地。我们沿着布劳利奥·卡里略国家公园的海拔梯度开展工作，寻找帐篷，检查其下方大型种子的存在情况，并进行网络分析以确定蝙蝠是否有大型种子植物的重点物种。我们预计帐篷栖息蝙蝠会沿着这个海拔梯度改变其对大型种子植物果实的消耗。我们还进行了文献综述，为帐篷栖息蝙蝠所消耗的大型种子植物提供参考。基于文献综述以及本研究记录的两种新的相互作用，有71种大型种子植物通过帐篷栖息蝙蝠进行扩散。我们发现了733个帐篷、79个帐篷觅食栖息地以及在这些帐篷下对应12个科的670颗种子。我们的研究表明，像拉氏腰果树、小叶波罗蜜和巴西红厚壳这样的大型种子植物在蝙蝠与植物的相互作用网络中至关重要，因为它们补充了蝙蝠与其他通过内果皮传播扩散的植物之间的相互作用。
