Resources forecast
bat foraging. Alone? Group?
You are what you eat.
Whilst Darwin’s finches are a classic example of selection acting on bird morphology and resulting in species that are able to eat different seed sizes and shapes, food characteristics can result in evolutionary impacts that are less immediately obvious.
Egert-Berg et al (2018) investigated the impact of ephemeral food sources on bat social behaviour. By tracking the foraging behaviour of 5 species of bats the researchers found that in bat species where food sources were predictable individual bats foraged alone, reducing the impacts of conspecific competition. In contrast, where food resources were unpredictable and transient bat species foraged in groups. The research is a fantastic example of a collaboration between researchers in different countries and continents.
Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.09.064