Meeting Abstract
The evolution of novel morphologies in the sensory system can lead to ecological diversification. Neotropical leaf-nosed bats (Phyllostomidae) are one of the most ecologically diverse groups of mammals, spanning a wide range of diets and foraging styles, and extreme morphological variation in external sensory structures used for echolocation (i.e., nose leaves and ears). To date, little is known about how morphological variation in these components of the sensory system evolve, and how they functionally affect echolocation parameters during foraging. We use phyllostomids as a model to address how the morphological diversity of external sensory structures influences ecological diversity. We applied 3D geometric morphometric analyses to quantify the shape of the nose leaf and ears of 19 phyllostomid species, spanning all the dietary guilds within the family (insectivory, animalivory, frugivory, nectarivory, omnivory and sanguinivory). We used these data to quantify how differences in sensory structure morphology are related to differences in echolocation call structure among species, and to test for relationships between morphological and dietary diversity. We found that different dietary guilds exhibit different amounts of diversity in the morphology of sensory structures and echolocation call parameters (e.g., maximum frequency and duration), with insectivorous and animalivorous bats exhibiting the greatest diversity. This may be explained by a lower prey type specificity, overall, in these guilds. Our results demonstrate that the morphology of the sensory system is tightly linked with acoustic and dietary diversity in bats.
