Environmental drivers of spatiotemporal foraging intensity in fruit bats and implications for Hendra virus ecology.

ABSTRACT: In the Australian subtropics, flying-foxes (family Pteropididae) play a fundamental ecological role as forest pollinators. Flying-foxes are also reservoirs of the fatal zoonosis, Hendra virus. Understanding flying fox foraging ecology, particularly in agricultural areas during winter, is critical to determine their role in transmitting Hendra virus to horses and humans. We developed a spatiotemporal model of flying-fox foraging intensity based on foraging patterns of 37 grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) using GPS tracking devices and boosted regression trees. We validated the model with independent population counts and summarized temporal patterns in terms of spatial resource concentration. We found that spatial resource concentration was highest in late-summer and lowest

SUBMITTER: Giles JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6015053 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature