Data for: Dietary analysis reveals differences in the prey use of two sympatric bat species

One mechanism for morphologically similar and sympatric species to avoid
competition and facilitate coexistence is to feed on different prey items
within different microhabitats. In the current study, we investigated and
compared the diet of the two most common and similar-sized bat species in
Japan – Murina ussuriensis (Ognev, 1913) and Myotis
ikonnikovi (Ognev, 1912) – to gain more knowledge about the degree of
overlap in their diet and their foraging behavior. We found that both bat
species consumed prey from the orders of Lepidoptera and Diptera most
frequently, while the proportion of Dipterans was higher in the diet of M.
ikonnikovi. Furthermore, we found a higher prey diversity in the diet of
M. ikonnikovi compared to that of M. ussuriensis which might indicate that
the former is a more generalist predator than the latter. In contrast, the
diet of M. ussuriensis contained many Lepidopteran families. The higher
probability of prey items likely captured via gleaning to occur in the
diet of M. ussuriensis in contrast to M. ikonnikovi indicates that M.
ussuriensis might switch between aerial-hawking and gleaning modes of
foraging behavior. We encourage further studies across various types of
habitats and seasons to investigate the flexibility of the diet
composition and foraging habitat use of these two bat species.