Correspondence Between Plight Morphology and Foraging Ecology in Some Palaeotropical Bats

Abstract

Analysis revealed a tight, functionally appropriate relationship between the flight morphology and foraging ecology of bats on Lombok I., Indonesia, that crossed family-level phylogenetic relationships in some instances. While aspect ratio, wing loading and tip shape were all important in separating microbat foraging strategies on Lombok I., the megabats were arrayed on differences in wing loading and tip shape related to solitary versus colonial foraging strategies. Flight morphology is a useful tool for studying ecological structure in the organisation of megabat as well as microbat communities.