Molecular diet analysis of two african free-tailed bats (molossidae) using high throughput sequencing.

Given the diversity of prey consumed by insectivorous bats, it is difficult to discern the composition of their diet using morphological or conventional PCR-based analyses of their faeces. We demonstrate the use of a powerful alternate tool, the use of the Roche FLX sequencing platform to deep-sequence uniquely 5' tagged insect-generic barcode cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) fragments, that were PCR amplified from faecal pellets of two free-tailed bat species Chaerephon pumilus and Mops condylurus (family: Molossidae). Although the analyses were challenged by the paucity of southern African insect COI sequences in the GenBank and BOLD databases, similarity to existing collections allowed the preliminary identification of 25 prey families from six orders of insects within the diet of C. pumilus, and 24 families from seven orders within the diet of M. condylurus. Insects identified to families within the orders Lepidoptera and Diptera were widely present among the faecal samples analysed. The two families that were observed most frequently were Noctuidae and Nymphalidae (Lepidoptera). Species-level analysis of the data was accomplished using novel bioinformatics techniques for the identification of molecular operational taxonomic units (MOTU). Based on these analyses, our data provide little evidence of resource partitioning between sympatric M. condylurus and C. pumilus in the Simunye region of Swaziland at the time of year when the samples were collected, although as more complete databases against which to compare the sequences are generated this may have to be re-evaluated.This study was supported by Bat Conservation International, Etatsraad Georg Bestle og Hustrus Mindelegat and the Oticon Fonden (KB and CN), the Danish Council for Independent Research Natural Sciences ‘Skou’ award (MTPG), and a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada post-doctoral fellowship (ELC). These funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This study was also supported by the Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation, who provided field assistance and therefore had a role in data collection

Benthic carbon turnover in continental slope and deep sea sediments: importance of organic matter quality at different time scales

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Geographic variation in the morphology, echolocation and diet of the little free-tailed bat, Chaerephon pumilus (Molossidae)

The insectivorous bat Chaerephon pumilus has a wide distribution in Africa and displays considerable variation in the colour of its wings and venter.We investigated whether variation is also evident in its morphology, echolocation and diet by comparing a population of this species in Amani Nature Reserve, Tanzania, with published data for these characters elsewhere in its range. Chaerephon pumilus in Amani is on average larger than individuals of this species elsewhere in its range. The Amani population has a longer mean forearm (39.1 ± 3.3mm)than populations in Ghana (36.4 ± 1.0 mm) and southern Africa (38 mm) and a higher wing loading (15.3 ± 2.2 N/m2) than populations in South Africa (mean = 12.6 N/m2). Its echolocation calls are of lower minimum, maximum and peak frequency but of a longer inter-pulse interval than in South Africa. As in other parts of its range, the Amani bats ate small insects ranging in body length from 3–8 mm. However, the most notable difference in the diet of the Amani population was the consumption of cockroaches (Blattodea: Blaberidae) which comprised more than 60% of the diet. These cockroaches shared the roost with the bats and the bats probably used vision to detect and capture the cockroaches by crawling on the rafters supporting the roof of the roost. Elsewhere in its range the diet of C. pumilus is dominated by Coleoptera, Hemiptera and Diptera.Keywords: bat, echolocation, morphology, diet, cryptic species, cockroac

Instantaneous benthic response to different organic matter quality: In situ experiments in the Benguela Upwelling System

The benthic community in continental slope and deep-sea sediments of the Benguela Upwelling System was supplied with 13C-labelled organic matter (OM) of two different qualities using a benthic chamber lander. Freeze-dried cultures of Skeletonema costatum served as ‘fresh’ OM. ‘Altered’ OM of the same material had been additionally dialysed to remove low-molecular weight compounds. In order to investigate the benthic response pattern, mineralization of labelled OM, uptake by macrofauna and incorporation into bacteria were followed over 18–36 h. Total oxygen uptake was not affected beyond natural variation by the OM addition. Mineralization dominated the 13C-labelled phytodetritus processing, constituting 71–95% of the total processed OM. Bacterial incorporation of phytodetrital carbon exceeded macrofaunal uptake at all stations. Stations situated in a major centre of OM deposition showed phytodetritus processing rates on average twice as high as outside the depocentre. Phytodetritus processing was 1.5, 2.5 and 4.3 times higher for fresh than for altered OM at 605, 1019 and 1335 m water depth, respectively. Our observations clearly indicate the importance of OM quality on mineralization rates

Parallel architectures and languages for advanced information processing A VLSI-directed approach

SIGLETIB Hannover: RO 7624(57) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekDEGerman