Study on dietary composition and pest control roles of ten sympatric insectivorous bat species

As efficient nocturnal predators, the quantitative assessment of pest control services of insectivorous bats has become a research focus. Accurately analyzing the proportion of agricultural pests in bat diets, particularly comparing dietary differences among different bat guilds with distinct foraging habitat preferences in heterogeneous agricultural landscapes, is crucial for evaluating their pest control services. We used insectivorous bats in the heterogeneous agricultural landscapes of Pu’er City, Yunnan Province as research subjects. Using DNA metabarcoding technology, we systematically analyzed the dietary composition and pest proportion in three bat foraging guilds: open-space foragers, narrow-space foragers and edge-space foragers. The correlation between the insect composition in bat diets and the availability of food resources in their environments was examined. The results showed that the most common insect order among the 10 species of insectivorous bats was Lepidoptera, accounting for 73.1% of the total insects. The proportion of pests in the dietary composition of insectivorous bats was more than 88.7%. There was a significant correlation between insect order composition in bat diets and environmental resources for all three guilds. The proportion of pests in the dietary composition of open space foraging guild was more than 85.0%. The highest diversity was found at the order level in the dietary composition of narrow-space foraging guild. The edge-space foraging guild exhibited a specialized predation pattern on agricultural pests, dominated overwhelmingly by Lepidoptera (99.13%). This study provides a detailed analysis of dietary composition and pest proportions among three foraging guilds in heterogeneous landscapes, confirming the effectiveness of insectivorous bats in pest control. The findings not only offer direct evidence for bats’ pest control functions in the ecosystem but also provide scientific basis for bat biodiversity conservation.