The Relationship between Body Size, Diet, and Habitat Use in Frugivorous Bats, Genus Carollia (Phyllostomidae)

I tested the hypothesis that body size significantly influences diet and habitat use in frugivorous bats of the genus Carollia (Phyllostomidae) by studying pairs or triplets of species in two Costa Rican habitats and by supplementing these data with published data from one Panamanian locality. I predicted that with an increase in body size, average size of fruit consumed increases, nutritional quality of fruit consumed decreases, and proportion of time spent feeding in second growth decreases. At each site, the smallest species of Carollia was the most common species in second-growth habitats, and its diet contained a higher proportion of nutritionally rich Piper fruits and a lower proportion of large fruits than that of larger species. A multivariate ecomorphological analysis indicated that sympatric Carollia species are similarly arrayed in niche space in wet and dry tropical forests and that sister species are farther apart in niche space than are nonsister species.