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Selective Feeding By Phyllostomid Fruit Bats In A Subtropical Montane Cloud Forest, David Herníndez-Conrique, Luis Iñiguez-Dávalos, Jay F. Storz

Jay F. Storz Publications

Phyllostomid bats eat the fruits and disperse the seeds of a wide variety of neotropical plant species, particularly those typical of early successional stages (Fleming & Heithaus 1981, Heithaus 1982, Orozco-Segovia et al. 1985). In assessing the effects of frugivorous animals on plant populations and vice-versa, it is important to determine whether the animals are selective in the types of fruit they eat, or whether the proportional abundance of different fruit species in their diets simply reflects availability in the environment. The purpose of this study was to test experimentally the hypothesis that two common phyllostomid species, Sturnira ludovici and …