One bite at a time: fruit size preferences in a Neotropical bat

Description

For frugivores, selecting high-quality fruits is complicated by trade-offs among attributes such as size, nutrient content, accessibility, and handling costs. Neotropical fruit bats are known to select larger sizes of fruit when choosing among figs, but it is unclear whether these preferences apply to other fruit types, which comprise an important part of bats’ diets. Here, we tested whether the Jamaican fruit bat, Artibeus jamaicensis, exhibits a preference for larger-sized pieces of fruit. We presented a series of two-choice sets in which banana pieces varied in size (0.5g, 1g, 2g, 3g), and we separately controlled for both total mass and total number of pieces across the two treatments. We found a weak, inconsistent preference for larger pieces that depended on the treatment condition and experience. When we controlled for the number of pieces, bats showed a stronger preference for larger pieces, but we did not observe similar patterns when we controlled for mass. Further, bats that were first presented with the condition in which we controlled piece number showed a stronger preference for larger pieces when we later controlled for mass, suggesting an important role of experience with particular attributes in guiding future preferences. Together, our findings suggest that trade-offs among fruit attributes, or a lack of preference for size, shape how bats attend to size when foraging.

Institutions

• University of Tennessee at Knoxville

  Tennessee, Knoxville
• Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

  Panamá, Panama City

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