干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Habitat heterogeneity is a primary ecological factor that is particularly pronounced in arid ecosystems. The Tehuacan valley is a subtropical semi-arid ecosystem in which several species of columnar cacti and agave (i.e., CAM plants) constitute the dominant elements accompanied by patches of trees and shrubs (i.e., C3 plants). Vegetation in Tehuacan is isotopically heterogenous because CAM plants have less depleted 13C values than C3 plants. Fruits and flowers of cactus and agaves offer abundant food to vertebrates, but their leaves might be less attractive to insects than the leaves of C3 plants. Therefore, we use carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis to test the hypothesis that C3 and CAM food would contribute asymmetrically to different guilds of birds and bats. We predict that granivorous and frugivorous birds and nectarivorous and frugivorous bats will consume a CAM diet, whereas insectivorous birds and bats will consume a C3 diet. Due to omnivory of bird and bat consumers, we predict that the importance of CAM food will decrease as the trophic level of the animal increases. Our results showed that CAM food predominated in plant-eating birds and in some flower-visiting bats, whereas C3 food predominated in insect-eating bats and birds and frugivorous bats. Habitat heterogeneity in Tehuacan is important for conservation due to the asymmetric role of CAM and C3 food in the nutrition of different feeding guilds of vertebrates. Our study provides basic information to evaluate the potential impact of habitat loss on functional groups of consumers in a semi-arid ecosystem.