Niche Differentiation in Two Sympatric Sibling Bat Species, Scotophilus Dinganii and Scotophilus Mhlanganii
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Ecomorphological studies reveal the coexistence of many phenotypically similar bat species. If competition theory is correct, these species should occupy different niches. Here we investigate whether 2 sympatric sibling species of insectivorous bats, Scotophilus dinganii and Scotophilus mhlanganii, that are similar in morphology also occupy similar niches as predicted by the ecomorphological paradigm. The only phenotypic differences we found between the 2 species were a 10-kHz difference in their echolocation frequencies (S. mhlanganii 42.6 ± 1.6 kHz; S. dinganii 33.7 0 ± 1.8 kHz) and a higher wing loading in S. mhlanganii (15.5 ± 2.3 N/m2) compared to S. dinganii (13.6 ± 1.5 N/m2) as a result of the former's similar mass but shorter wingspan. However, there was much overlap in the wing parameters, including wing loading, of the 2 species. In support of the ecomorphological paradigm, the similarity in their phenotypes was reflected in the absence of any detectable spatial or temporal differences in their habitat use (determined by radiotelemetry). Furthermore, subtle differences in skull morphology were correlated with subtle differences in the size of dietary items eaten. S. dinganii, with its larger skull, ate a wider range of insect prey sizes (11.2–18.9 mm) than S. mhlanganii (11.6–12.2 mm). The most profound ecological difference between the 2 species was the use of different roosts. S. dinganii always was found in building roosts and S. mhlanganii always in trees. Thus, the ecological similarities with their phenotypic correlates support the ecomorphological paradigm. Assortative mating, resulting from the use of different roosts, combined with genetic drift, may explain the subtle differences reported here.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".