Human-modified landscapes provide key foraging areas for a threatened flying mammal: The grey-headed flying-fox
| Autor: | Justin A. Welbergen, Jessica Meade, Samantha H. Yabsley, John M. Martin |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2021 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Range (biology) Social Sciences 01 natural sciences Urban Environments Habits Chiroptera Medicine and Health Sciences Psychology Foraging Geographic Areas education.field_of_study Multidisciplinary biology Animal Behavior Geography Ecology Eukaryota Plants Terrestrial Environments Habitat Medicine Research Article Urban Areas Resource (biology) Science Population Human Geography 010603 evolutionary biology Fruits Urban Geography Urbanization Animals education Ecosystem Nutrition Behavior 010604 marine biology & hydrobiology Eating Habits Ecology and Environmental Sciences Organisms Biology and Life Sciences 15. Life on land biology.organism_classification Pteropus poliocephalus Diet Food Threatened species Earth Sciences Zoology |
| Zdroj: | PLoS ONE PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 11 (2021) PLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 11, p e0259395 (2021) |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| Popis: | Urban expansion is a major threat to natural ecosystems but also creates novel opportunities that adaptable species can exploit. The grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) is a threatened, highly mobile species of bat that is increasingly found in human-dominated landscapes, leading to many management and conservation challenges. Flying-fox urbanisation is thought to be a result of diminishing natural foraging habitat or increasing urban food resources, or both. However, little is known about landscape utilisation of flying-foxes in human-modified areas, and how this may differ in natural areas. Here we examine positional data from 98 satellite-tracked P. poliocephalus for up to 5 years in urban and non-urban environments, in relation to vegetation data and published indices of foraging habitat quality. Our findings indicate that human-modified foraging landscapes sustain a large proportion of the P. poliocephalus population year-round. When individuals roosted in non-urban and minor-urban areas, they relied primarily on wet and dry sclerophyll forest, forested wetlands, and rainforest for foraging, and preferentially visited foraging habitat designated as high-quality. However, our results highlight the importance of human-modified foraging habitats throughout the species’ range, and particularly for individuals that roosted in major-urban environments. The exact plant species that exist in human-modified habitats are largely undocumented; however, where this information was available, foraging by P. poliocephalus was associated with different dominant plant species depending on whether individuals roosted in ‘urban’ or ‘non-urban’ areas. Overall, our results demonstrate clear differences in urban- and non-urban landscape utilisation by foraging P. poliocephalus. However, further research is needed to understand the exact foraging resources used, particularly in human-modified habitats, and hence what attracts flying-foxes to urban areas. Such information could be used to modify the urban foraging landscape, to assist long-term habitat management programs aimed at minimising human-wildlife conflict and maximising resource availability within and outside of urban environments. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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