ArticleBMC biology2021
Fruit bats adjust their foraging strategies to urban environments to diversify their diet.
Article in BMC biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- A Two-Dimensional Grid-Cell Code for Three-Dimensional Navigation in Freely Flying Bats.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Urbanisation Drives Microevolution in the Egyptian Fruit Bat (Evolutionary applications · 2026Article
- Underrepresentation of bats in Africa's protected areas.Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Exploratory Temporal and Evolutionary Insights into theMicroorganisms · 2025Article
- Complex competition interactions between Egyptian fruit bats and black rats in the real world.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Foraging Movement Patterns of Lactating Mexican Long-Nosed Bats in Central Mexico.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Diet composition affects bat viral shedding with potential consequences for pathogen spillover.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Gut Microbiota Dynamics in Hibernating and ActiveVeterinary sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Data on the diet and nutrition of urban and rural bumblebees.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Article
- Article
- Evaluation of Mastadenovirus and Rotavirus Presence in Phyllostomid, Vespertilionid, and Molossid Bats Captured in Rio Grande do Sul, Southern Brazil.Food and environmental virology · 2024Article
- Article
- Bat-Associated PathogenicTransboundary and emerging diseases · 2024Article
- Fruit bats adjust their decision-making process according to environmental dynamics.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Impact of climate change on the distribution and predicted habitat suitability of two fruit bats (Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Urban tolerance is phylogenetically constrained and mediated by pre-adaptations in African bats.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUrbanization is one of the most influential processes on our globe, putting a great number of species under threat. Some species learn to cope with urbanization, and a few even benefit from it, but we are only starting to understand how they do so. In this study, we GPS tracked Egyptian fruit bats from urban and rural populations to compare their movement and foraging in urban and rural environments. Because fruit trees are distributed differently in these two environments, with a higher diversity in urban environments, we hypothesized that foraging strategies will differ too.
resultsWhen foraging in urban environments, bats were much more exploratory than when foraging in rural environments, visiting more sites per hour and switching foraging sites more often on consecutive nights. By doing so, bats foraging in settlements diversified their diet in comparison to rural bats, as was also evident from their choice to often switch fruit species. Interestingly, the location of the roost did not dictate the foraging grounds, and we found that many bats choose to roost in the countryside but nightly commute to and forage in urban environments.
conclusionsBats are unique among small mammals in their ability to move far rapidly. Our study is an excellent example of how animals adjust to environmental changes, and it shows how such mobile mammals might exploit the new urban fragmented environment that is taking over our landscape.
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