Agriculture shapes the trophic niche of a bat preying on multiple pest arthropods across Europe: evidence from DNA metabarcoding

The interaction between agricultural production and wildlife can shape, and even condition, the functioning of both systems. In this study we i) explored the degree to which a widespread European bat, namely the common bent-wing bat Miniopterus schreibersii, consumes crop-damaging insects at a continental scale, and ii) tested whether its dietary niche is shaped by the extension and type of agricultural fields. We employed a dual-primer DNA metabarcoding approach to characterise arthropod 16S and COI DNA sequences within bat faecal pellets collected across 16 Southern European localities, to first characterise the bat species’ dietary niche, secondly measure the incidence of agricultural pests across their ranges, and thirdly assess whether geographical dietary variation responds to climatic, landscape diversity, agriculture type and vegetation productivity factors. We detected 12 arthropod orders, among which lepidopterans were predominant. We identified >200 species, 44 of which ar...