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Tissue Collection of Bats for -Omics Analyses and Primary Cell Culture

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Connecting behaviour and performance: the evolution of biting behaviour and bite performance in bats.

S E Santana¹, E R Dumont

¹Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003, USA. ssantana@bio.umass.edu

Journal of Evolutionary Biology

|September 8, 2009

Summary

Bats adjust their biting behavior to enhance bite force, especially when consuming hard foods. This behavioral plasticity evolved rapidly, coinciding with dietary shifts and potentially driving bat diversification.

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Area of Science:

Ecomorphology
Evolutionary Biology
Animal Behavior

Background:

Traditionally, variation in animal behavior, performance, and ecology is linked to morphology.
The interplay between behavior and performance, crucial for fitness-related tasks, is understudied within the ecomorphological paradigm.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the relationship between biting behavior and performance (bite force) in 20 diverse bat species.
To analyze the evolutionary patterns of plasticity in biting behavior and bite force.
To reconstruct ancestral states for behavior and its plasticity.

Main Methods:

Comparative analysis of biting behavior and bite force across 20 bat species.
Phylogenetic reconstruction of ancestral states for behavioral and performance plasticity.
Correlation analysis between behavioral plasticity and bite force.

Main Results:

Both behavioral and performance plasticity in bats showed accelerating evolution.
Periods of rapid evolutionary change in plasticity coincided with significant dietary shifts (insectivorous to plantivorous).
A significant positive correlation was found between behavioral plasticity and bite force.

Conclusions:

Bats actively modulate their biting behavior to optimize bite force, particularly for hard food items.
The ancestral phyllostomid bat likely possessed high behavioral plasticity, a trait also observed in specialized frugivores.
High behavioral plasticity may have contributed to the diversification of certain bat lineages, especially frugivores.