Rapid foraging risk assessments in the Jamaican fruit bat, Artibeus jamaicensis

Abstract

Foraging increases predation risk. As such, prey frequently attend to potential predator cues when making decisions about foraging behaviour. Environmental cues, such as light levels, can impact predation risk, and populations from different environments may vary in how they respond to such cues. Here we experimentally manipulated foraging conditions for a frugivorous bat, the Jamaican fruit bat, to ask whether individuals rapidly alter their foraging behaviour based on potential predator cues and light levels. Specifically, we ran bats in multiple foraging trials across a night in which we varied the level of ambient light or predator cues (auditory or visual) and measured latencies to feed. We found that bats in a more urban population were most affected by simulated full moonlight, delaying their foraging behaviour. In contrast, bats from a rural population were sensitive to simulated urban light. Furthermore, rural bats were also more sensitive to potential predator cues and foraged more rapidly in the presence of novel objects and auditory predator cues. These results reveal variation across populations of the same species with respect to their response to potential predator cues, possibly indicating differences in their evaluations of foraging risks.