Received: 27 January 2020 | Revised: 27 October 2020 | Accepted: 19 November 2020 DOI: 10.1111/mec.15769 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Predator preferences shape the diets of arthropodivorous bats more than quantitative local prey abundance Amy K. Wray1,2 | M. Zachariah Peery1 | Michelle A. Jusino3,4 | Jade M. Kochanski2 | Mark T. Banik3 | Jonathan M. Palmer3 | Daniel L. Lindner3 | Claudio Gratton2 1Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin- Abstract Madison, Madison, WI, USA Although most predators are generalists, the majority of studies on the association 2Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA between prey availability and prey consumption have focused on specialist preda- 3Center for Forest Mycology Research, tors. To investigate the role of highly generalist predators in a complex food web, Northern Research Station, USDA Forest we measured the relationships between prey consumption and prey availability in Service, Madison, WI, USA two common arthropodivorous bats. Specifically, we used high-throughput amplicon 4Department of Plant Pathology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA sequencing coupled with a known mock community to characterize seasonal changes in little brown and big brown bat diets. We then linked spatiotemporal variation in Correspondence Amy K. Wray, Department of Forest and prey consumption with quantitative prey availability estimated from intensive prey Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin- community sampling. We found that although quantitative prey availability fluctu- Madison, Madison, WI, USA. Email:
[email protected] ated substantially over space and time, the most commonly consumed prey items were consistently detected in bat diets independently of their respective abundance. Funding information National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Positive relationships between prey abundance and probability of consumption were Grant/Award Number: WIS01841 found only among prey groups that were less frequently detected in bat diets.