Data for: "Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight"

In this paper, we are testing the hypothesis that greater noctule bats (Nyctalus lasiopterus) search for, catch and eat nocturnally migrating songbirds on the wing.

We attached miniature multi-sensor loggers to the back of bats that recorded sound and movement of the bats while they were hunting.

To reconstruct the findings in our paper: "Carnivorous bats hunt songbirds on the wing at high altitudes", we have here provided the code and data to reproduce the major findings of the paper:

TAG DATA:
Figure 01: Comparison of the hunting behavior when catching insects and birds
We compare the biosonar behavior measured as:
- the duration of buzzing per hunting event (Figure 1a)
-The number of buzzes per hunting event (Figure 1b)
- the altitude at which the bats detect their prey (Figure1c).
- The changes in altitude the bats are covering from prey detection to prey capture (Figure 1d)
- The duration of the mastication after prey captures. (Figure 1e)
This data is saved in the excel file: Figure01Data.xlsx and can be plotted in matlab using the script: Figure01.m

Figure 3a-d: The sensory and movement behavior during the last stage of the hunting events
Here we compare the movement behavior based on 3 different variables:
- The highest change in pitch measured in Euler angles (Figure 3g)
- The highest change in roll measured in Euler angles (figure 3h)
- The maximum tortuosity measured from a straight line (0) to circular movement (1) (Figure 3i)
The sensory behavior is summarised as the duration of each individual buzz emitting during all hunting events (Fig 3 e).

The data is extracted following: A_load_and_extractData.m. This scripts loads in the raw audiofiles (n = 372) and the calibrated sensordata (n = 372) and extracts the differences between insect and bird hunting events.

The figures can be plotted from Figure01.m and Figure03.m

To make the analysis and the plots, you need to add the helpfiles from folder.

PASSERINE DISTRESS CALL:
The passerine audio library data is stored in the BirdCallData folder with an annotated R-script to run the classification model.

PASSERINE WINGS:
Predator DNA barcoding (n = 3 wings) of passerine wings found at hunting grounds of greater noctule bats is stored in _wings_repository_info.xlsx

BAT DIET FROM FECES:
DNA metabarcoding of bat faeces (n = 98 fecal pellets) from pellets from a mesh collector positioned below the bat boxes housing 12 of the tagged bats.
Data is saved in the "diet" folder.