Data from: The foraging ecology of the Mountain long-eared bat Plecotus macrobullaris revealed with DNA mini-barcodes

Molecular analysis of diet overcomes the considerable limitations of traditional techniques for identifying prey remains in bat faeces. We collected faeces from individual Mountain long-eared bats Plecotus macrobullaris trapped using mist nets during the summers of 2009 and 2010 in the Pyrenees. We analysed their diet using DNA mini-barcodes to identify prey species. In addition, we inferred some basic features of the bat’s foraging ecology that had not yet been addressed. P. macrobullaris fed almost exclusively on moths (97.8%). As prey we detected one dipteran genus (Tipulidae) and 29 moth taxa: 28 were identified at species level (23 Noctuidae, 1 Crambidae, 1 Geometridae, 1 Pyralidae, 1 Sphingidae, 1 Tortricidae), and one at genus level (Rhyacia sp., Noctuidae). Known ecological information about the prey species allowed us to determine that bats had foraged at elevations between 1,500 and 2,500 m amsl (above mean sea level), mostly in subalpine meadows, followed by other open habitats such as orophilous grasslands and alpine meadows. No forest prey species were identified in the diet. As 96.4% of identified prey species were tympanate moths and no evidence of gleaning behaviour was revealed, we suggest P. macrobullaris probably forages by aerial hawking using faint echolocation pulses to avoid detection by hearing moths. As we could identify 87.8% of the analysed sequences (64.1% of the MOTUs, Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units) at species level, we conclude that DNA mini-barcodes are a very useful tool to analyse the diet of moth-specialist bats.

饮食分子分析克服了传统蝙蝠粪便猎物残骸鉴定技术所存在的显著局限。本研究于2009年与2010年夏季，在比利牛斯山脉利用雾网诱捕山地长耳蝠（Plecotus macrobullaris）个体，并采集其粪便样本。本研究采用DNA微型条形码（DNA mini-barcodes）技术分析其饮食以鉴定猎物物种；此外，我们还推断了该蝙蝠此前尚未被阐明的觅食生态基本特征。山地长耳蝠（P. macrobullaris）的饮食几乎完全依赖蛾类（占比97.8%）。本次检测到的猎物包括1个双翅目属（大蚊科（Tipulidae））以及29个蛾类分类单元：其中28个鉴定至物种水平（23个隶属于夜蛾科（Noctuidae）、1个草螟科（Crambidae）、1个尺蛾科（Geometridae）、1个螟蛾科（Pyralidae）、1个天蛾科（Sphingidae）、1个卷蛾科（Tortricidae）），剩余1个鉴定至属水平（Rhyacia sp.，夜蛾科（Noctuidae））。结合猎物物种已知的生态信息，我们推断该蝙蝠的觅食海拔介于1500至2500米平均海平面以上（amsl），主要活动于亚高山草甸，其次为山地草原、高山草甸等其他开阔生境；其饮食中未检测到森林相关猎物物种。由于96.4%的鉴定猎物物种为具鼓膜器的蛾类，且未发现拾食行为的相关证据，我们推测山地长耳蝠可能通过发出微弱的回声定位脉冲进行空中飞捕，以避免被具有听觉的蛾类察觉。本次分析的序列中，有87.8%可鉴定至物种水平（占分子操作分类单元（Molecular Operational Taxonomic Units，MOTUs）的64.1%），因此我们认为DNA微型条形码是分析蛾类专食性蝙蝠饮食的高效实用工具。