Dataset Information

Environmental drivers of spatiotemporal foraging intensity in fruit bats and implications for Hendra virus ecology.

ABSTRACT: In the Australian subtropics, flying-foxes (family Pteropididae) play a fundamental ecological role as forest pollinators. Flying-foxes are also reservoirs of the fatal zoonosis, Hendra virus. Understanding flying fox foraging ecology, particularly in agricultural areas during winter, is critical to determine their role in transmitting Hendra virus to horses and humans. We developed a spatiotemporal model of flying-fox foraging intensity based on foraging patterns of 37 grey-headed flying-foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) using GPS tracking devices and boosted regression trees. We validated the model with independent population counts and summarized temporal patterns in terms of spatial resource concentration. We found that spatial resource concentration was highest in late-summer and lowest in winter, with lowest values in winter 2011, the same year an unprecedented cluster of spillover events occurred in Queensland and New South Wales. Spatial resource concentration was positively correlated with El Niño Southern Oscillation at 3-8 month time lags. Based on shared foraging traits with the primary reservoir of Hendra virus (Pteropus alecto), we used our results to develop hypotheses on how regional climatic history, eucalypt phenology, and foraging behaviour may contribute to the predominance of winter spillovers, and how these phenomena connote foraging habitat conservation as a public health intervention.

SUBMITTER: Giles JR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6015053 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Environmental drivers of spatiotemporal foraging intensity in fruit bats and implications for Hendra virus ecology.

Giles John R JR Eby Peggy P Parry Hazel H Peel Alison J AJ Plowright Raina K RK Westcott David A DA McCallum Hamish H

Scientific reports 20180622 1

In the Australian subtropics, flying-foxes (family Pteropididae) play a fundamental ecological role as forest pollinators. Flying-foxes are also reservoirs of the fatal zoonosis, Hendra virus. Understanding flying fox foraging ecology, particularly in agricultural areas during winter, is critical to determine their role in transmitting Hendra virus to horses and humans. We developed a spatiotemporal model of flying-fox foraging intensity based on foraging patterns of 37 grey-headed flying-foxes ...[more]

PMID: 29934514

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Project description:Hendra virus (HeV) causes highly lethal disease in horses and humans in the eastern Australian states of Queensland (QLD) and New South Wales (NSW), with multiple equine cases now reported on an annual basis. Infection and excretion dynamics in pteropid bats (flying-foxes), the recognised natural reservoir, are incompletely understood. We sought to identify key spatial and temporal factors associated with excretion in flying-foxes over a 2300 km latitudinal gradient from northern QLD to southern NSW which encompassed all known equine case locations. The aim was to strengthen knowledge of Hendra virus ecology in flying-foxes to improve spillover risk prediction and exposure risk mitigation strategies, and thus better protect horses and humans. Monthly pooled urine samples were collected from under roosting flying-foxes over a three-year period and screened for HeV RNA by quantitative RT-PCR. A generalised linear model was employed to investigate spatiotemporal associations with HeV detection in 13,968 samples from 27 roosts. There was a non-linear relationship between mean HeV excretion prevalence and five latitudinal regions, with excretion moderate in northern and central QLD, highest in southern QLD/northern NSW, moderate in central NSW, and negligible in southern NSW. Highest HeV positivity occurred where black or spectacled flying-foxes were present; nil or very low positivity rates occurred in exclusive grey-headed flying-fox roosts. Similarly, little red flying-foxes are evidently not a significant source of virus, as their periodic extreme increase in numbers at some roosts was not associated with any concurrent increase in HeV detection. There was a consistent, strong winter seasonality to excretion in the southern QLD/northern NSW and central NSW regions. This new information allows risk management strategies to be refined and targeted, mindful of the potential for spatial risk profiles to shift over time with changes in flying-fox species distribution.

Project description:Abstract:Animals can gain important information by attending to the signals and cues of other animals in their environment, with acoustic information playing a major role in many taxa. Echolocation call sequences of bats contain information about the identity and behaviour of the sender which is perceptible to close-by receivers. Increasing evidence supports the communicative function of echolocation within species, yet data about its role for interspecific information transfer is scarce. Here, we asked which information bats extract from heterospecific echolocation calls during foraging. In three linked playback experiments, we tested in the flight room and field if foraging Myotis bats approached the foraging call sequences of conspecifics and four heterospecifics that were similar in acoustic call structure only (acoustic similarity hypothesis), in foraging ecology only (foraging similarity hypothesis), both, or none. Compared to the natural prey capture rate of 1.3 buzzes per minute of bat activity, our playbacks of foraging sequences with 23-40 buzzes/min simulated foraging patches with significantly higher profitability. In the flight room, M. capaccinii only approached call sequences of conspecifics and of the heterospecific M. daubentonii with similar acoustics and foraging ecology. In the field, M. capaccinii and M. daubentonii only showed a weak positive response to those two species. Our results confirm information transfer across species boundaries and highlight the importance of context on the studied behaviour, but cannot resolve whether information transfer in trawling Myotis is based on acoustic similarity only or on a combination of similarity in acoustics and foraging ecology. Significance statement:Animals transfer information, both voluntarily and inadvertently, and within and across species boundaries. In echolocating bats, acoustic call structure and foraging ecology are linked, making echolocation calls a rich source of information about species identity, ecology and activity of the sender, which receivers might exploit to find profitable foraging grounds. We tested in three lab and field experiments if information transfer occurs between bat species and if bats obtain information about ecology from echolocation calls. Myotis capaccinii/daubentonii bats approached call playbacks, but only those from con- and heterospecifics with similar call structure and foraging ecology, confirming interspecific information transfer. Reactions differed between lab and field, emphasising situation-dependent differences in animal behaviour, the importance of field research, and the need for further studies on the underlying mechanism of information transfer and the relative contributions of acoustic and ecological similarity.

Dataset Information

Environmental drivers of spatiotemporal foraging intensity in fruit bats and implications for Hendra virus ecology.

Publications

Environmental drivers of spatiotemporal foraging intensity in fruit bats and implications for Hendra virus ecology.

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