Bat pollination in the Yungas

Bat-plant pollination interactions at the range margin in the southwestern Neotropics have been largely unexplored. Here, we report for the first time on bat pollination, visitation rate, and efficiency for Melidiscus giganteus, Helicteres lhotzkyana, and Pitcairnia oranensis, representing the first direct evidence of bat pollination in the Southern Andean Yungas., We conducted a plant-centered interaction survey focusing on three plant species at four foothill sites in northwestern Argentina. To record visits, we employed both video cameras and direct observation during nighttime, when flowers opened, accumulating a total observation time of 41.6 hours for 36 flowers across the three species. The visitation rate (Vr) was calculated as Vr=VfxF-1xT-1, where Vf represents visitation frequency, F is the number of observed flowers, and T is the observation time in hours. Additionally, we calculated pollination efficiency (PE) as PE = VsxF-1xT-1, where Vs represents the visitation frequency with visitors making contact with anthers and stigma. To assess differences in Vr and PE among plant species, we utilized generalized linear models with Poisson data distribution. We used Vf and Vs as a response variable and the natural log of the product of F and T as an offset to obtain Vr and PE, respectively. Our models sought to explore whether Vr and PE variat..., , # Bat pollination in the Yungas

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6mqc](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9s4mw6mqc)

## Description of the data and file structure

The data table is embedded with the script

Column names have the following meanings:

For data.frame \"visits\":

* Plant: plant species name
* patch: observation unit
* T: observation time in each patch in hours
* F: number of flowers in each patch
* type: type of flower visitor
* Vf: visitation frequency
* success: successful visitation frequency

Operations added as columns to \"visits\"

* F.T: vector of the product F*T
* Vr: visitation rate obtains as Vr/F.T

## Code/Software

An R script is attached