1. Agriculture shapes the trophic niche of a bat preying on multiple pest arthropods across Europe: Evidence from DNA metabarcoding
- Author
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Farkas Szodoray-Paradi, Panagiotis Georgiakakis, Ostaizka Aizpurua, Vanessa A. Mata, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Antton Alberdi, Danilo Russo, Hugo Rebelo, Violeta Zhelyazkova, Ivana Budinski, Vida Zrncic, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Carlos F. Ibáñez, Danish Council for Independent Research, Carlsberg Foundation, European Commission, Aizpurua, O., Budinski, I., Georgiakakis, P., Gopalakrishnan, S., Ibañez, C., Mata, V., Rebelo, H., Russo, Danilo, Szodoray-Parádi, F., Zhelyazkova, V., Zrncic, V., Gilbert, M. T. P., and Alberdi, A.
- Subjects
0106 biological sciences ,0301 basic medicine ,Range (biology) ,Foraging ,Niche ,Wildlife ,Biology ,Predator-prey interactions ,010603 evolutionary biology ,01 natural sciences ,predator–prey interaction ,Predation ,Pest suppression ,03 medical and health sciences ,Species Specificity ,Chiroptera ,Genetics ,Animals ,DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic ,Invertebrate ,Agricultural productivity ,Arthropods ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,Ecosystem ,Geography ,Ecology ,business.industry ,fungi ,Miniopterus schreibersii ,Agriculture ,pest suppression ,15. Life on land ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematic ,Invertebrates ,Diet ,Europe ,030104 developmental biology ,Predatory Behavior ,PEST analysis ,Metagenomics ,eDNA ,business - Abstract
The interaction between agricultural production and wildlife can shape, and even condition, the functioning of both systems. In this study, we i) explored the degree to which a widespread European bat, namely the common bent-wing bat Miniopterus schreibersii, consumes crop-damaging insects at a continental scale, and ii) tested whether its dietary niche is shaped by the extension and type of agricultural fields. We employed a dual-primer DNA metabarcoding approach to characterize arthropod 16S and COI DNA sequences within bat faecal pellets collected across 16 Southern European localities, to first characterize the bat species’ dietary niche, second measure the incidence of agricultural pests across their ranges and third assess whether geographical dietary variation responds to climatic, landscape diversity, agriculture type and vegetation productivity factors. We detected 12 arthropod orders, among which lepidopterans were predominant. We identified >200 species, 44 of which are known to cause agricultural damage. Pest species were detected at all but one sampling site and in 94% of the analysed samples. Furthermore, the dietary diversity of M. schreibersii exhibited a negative linear relation with the area of intensive agricultural fields, thus suggesting crops restrict the dietary niche of bats to prey taxa associated with agricultural production within their foraging range. Overall, our results imply that M. schreibersii might be a valuable asset for biological pest suppression in a variety of agricultural productions and highlight the dynamic interplay between wildlife and agricultural systems., We thank the staff at the Danish National High-Throughput DNASequencing Centre for generating the sequencing data. Furthermore,we thank Kristine Bohmann and the three anonymous reviewers foredits and comments on the manuscript. AA was supported by The Danish Council for Independent Research (5051-00033), and OAwas supported by the Carlsberg Foundation’s Distinguished Postdoc-toral Fellowship (CF15-0619). SG was supported by a Marie Skło-dowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (655732)
- Published
- 2017