关键词: 夜行性, 马铁菊头蝠, 猎物资源, 声学调查法

Abstract: The relationships between forager and prey are significant to understanding foraging behaviour and spatial patterns of populations. Rhinolophus ferrumequinum is an endemic species in Eurasia which has been listed as lower risk and near threatened (LR/ nt species) in IUCN Red List. We first reported the relationships between the foraging activities of greater horseshoe bats and insect resources. We used acoustic surveys to obtain activity frequency of R. ferrumequinum. At the same time,we used light traps,flight intercept traps and sweep nets to capture the insects at every sampling site. The insects were identified to family. We captured R. ferrumequinum with mist nests at the cave entrance when they returned from foraging in order to collect their feces. The diets were ascertained by fecal analysis. We used ANOVA to analyze the differences of bat activity between months. Partial correlation was used to correlate the frequency of bat activity and multiple insect parameters. Bonferroni simultaneous confidence intervals (95% )were calculated to evaluate selection for
or against prey categories. The results showed that greater horseshoe bats mainly foraged on Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, however,there were some seasonal variations in the diets. The foraging activity was significantly positively correlated with Lepidoptera abundance. Chi-square tests showed that there were significant differences between the diet of greater horseshoe bats and the available insects in the environment. While insect abundance was high in the environment,greater horseshoe bats selectively foraged on Coleoptera,which were quite nutritious for bats.

Key words: Acoustic survey, Nocturnal, Prey resources, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum