Trophic position and dietary breadth of bats revealed by nitrogen isotopic composition of amino acids.

ABSTRACT: Bats perform important ecosystem services, but it remains difficult to quantify their dietary strategies and trophic position (TP) in situ. We conducted measurements of nitrogen isotopes of individual amino acids (δ ¹⁵N_AA) and bulk-tissue carbon (δ ¹³C_bulk) and nitrogen (δ ¹⁵N_bulk) isotopes for nine bat species from different feeding guilds (nectarivory, frugivory, sanguivory, piscivory, carnivory, and insectivory). Our objective was to assess the precision of δ ¹⁵N_AA-based estimates of TP relative to other approaches. TPs calculated from δ ¹⁵N values of glutamic acid and phenylalanine, which range from 8.3-33.1‰ and 0.7-15.4‰ respectively, varied between 1.8 and 3.8 for individuals of each s

SUBMITTER: Campbell CJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5698291 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature