The Study On Feeding Behavior Of Two Fruit Bats, Rusettus Leschenaulti And Cynopterus Sphinx, In Xishuangbanna Area, Southwest China

Our experiments were mainly conducted in Xishuangbanna area, Southwest China. The whole period lasted from June 2009 to September 2010. I carried out experiments not only in the field but also in the laboratory. Our work composed of four parts :(1) The feeding behavior and food intake of Rousettus leschenaulti on Dimocarpus longan;(2) The study on feeding behavior of Cynopterus sphinx on Ficus hispida;(3) Observations on spatial memory during the foraging activity of Cynopterus Sphinx in flight cage;(4) The effect of ingestion by Rousettus leschenaulti on seed germination of five kinds of fruits.The main results were showed as follows:There were three foraging activity peaks from 19:30 to 5:30, which occurred at 20:30–21:00,22:00–22:30 and 1:00–1:30. Moreover, we fed the bats with the fruits of D. longan in ten flight cages, results showed that R. leschenaulti with different body weight consumed different quantity of D. longan fruits with the range from 6 to 20, and the actual food intake is 1–1.8 times the mass of their bodies.We observed the hung position fruits of Ficus hispida, and measured some morphological characters of fruits of F. hispida and Cynopterus sphinx, which is regular forager to their fruits. Moreover, we tried to find out the relation between the information of vision and olfaction offered by fruits of F. hispida and the use of sensory system of fruit bats when they foraged the figs in flight cage. The results showed that F. hispida and fruit bat adapted to each other very well.We recorded and analyzed datas from three aspects as follows: (1) correct rate;(2) time cost;(3) total numbers of visits. Results showed that correct rate improved significantly from the thirteenth trial(p<0.05), as final correct rate was up to 88.1±2.03(%);Time cost and numbers of visits had a significant decline from the sixth and fifth trial(p<0.05), the final results were 19.5±1.31(s) and 6.5±0.53 . In short, the experimental results suggested that C.Sphinx were able to memorize the food position and make use of this capability for feeding.The effect of ingestion by Rousettus leschenaulti has no significant on germination percent (GP) for fruits of Solanum verbascifolium, Ficus benjamina, Ficus oligodon, Ficus semicordata, Ficus callosa. The parameters of germination start(GS) and minimum imbibition time(Tmin)in control,ejecta,scats three trials were different among four kinds of fruit (exclude Ficus callosa );Time necessary for reaching 50%germination capacity(T50) in three trials showed differences in all species of fruit.