Bats in Tel Aviv enjoy the rich variety and abundance of food the city
has to offer

Date:
July 19, 2021
Source:
Tel-Aviv University
Summary:
Researchers have found that when fruit bats forage in the city
(Tel Aviv), they are much more exploratory and enjoy the diversity
of urban life, visiting a variety of fruit trees every night
and tasting as wide a variety of foods as possible. In contrast,
rural bats living in Beit Guvrin focus on only one or two fruit
trees every night.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
A new Tel Aviv University study found that, like humans, bats living
in Tel Aviv enjoy the wide variety and abundance of food that the city
has to offer, in contrast to rural bats living in Beit Guvrin, who are
content eating only one type of food. The study was led by research
student Katya Egert-Berg, under the guidance of Prof. Yossi Yovel, head
of Tel Aviv University's Sagol School of Neuroscience and a faculty
member of the School of Zoology in the George S.

Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural
History, as well as a recipient of the 2021 Kadar Family Award for
Outstanding Research.

The study was published in the journal BMC Biology.


==========================================================================
The researchers explain that despite the intensification of urbanization processes, which tend to lead animals to leave the city, there are
animals that are able to thrive in an urban domain. One such example is
the fruit bat. These bats, like humans, live in a variety of environments, including the city and the countryside; there are even some that forage
in the city and then go home to roost in the country.

The urban environment is fundamentally different from the rural
environment in terms of the diversity and accessibility of food. Although
the city has a larger variety of trees per area, there are many challenges
that bats have to face, such as buildings and humans. In rural areas,
on the other hand, most of the trees are concentrated in orchards
without barriers, but have less diversity -- the trees are mostly of
one type. Because of the fundamental environmental differences between
the city and the country with regards to the distribution and variety
of fruit trees, the nature of the bats' movement when foraging in these
areas differs as well.

In this new study, the researchers compared the nature of the movement
of rural bats and city bats as they foraged for food. They used tiny GPS devices to track the bats, to see if the way they moved while searching
for food was affected by their living environment, or the environment
in which they were foraging.

They found that fruit bats foraging in the city are much more exploratory, enjoy the abundance of the urban environment, visit a variety of fruit
trees every night, and feed from a wide a variety of trees. In contrast,
the rural bats focus on only one or two fruit trees each night. Moreover,
the researchers found that among the rural bats who roost in the
countryside, there were many who left their rural homes every night in
search of food in the city, and then flew back to the country after their
meal. During their stay in the city, such bats share the same flight
patterns as those of the bats that live in the city around the clock.

The study's findings led the researchers to assess that even bats that
live in rural environments their entire lives will be able to orient
themselves in an urban, industrialized environment. They explain that
there are animal species that are flexible -- for them, the ability to
adapt to a new and unfamiliar environment such as an urban settlement is
an acquired skill. Such species, of which the fruit bats are an example,
will in many cases be able to adapt to life in urban areas.

Prof. Yovel: "How animals cope with urbanization is one
of the most central and important questions in ecological
research today. Understanding the ways in which animals adapt
to urban areas can help us in our conservation efforts. The
urban environment is characterized by much fragmentation,
and we currently have little understanding of how animals,
especially small animals, like the bats, move and fly in such areas." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Tel-Aviv_University. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Katya Egert-Berg, Michal Handel, Aya Goldshtein, Ofri Eitan, Ivailo
Borissov, Yossi Yovel. Fruit bats adjust their foraging strategies
to urban environments to diversify their diet. BMC Biology, 2021;
19 (1) DOI: 10.1186/s12915-021-01060-x ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210719110538.htm

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