• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Biology

Bats in Tel Aviv enjoy the rich variety and abundance of food the city has to offer

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
July 19, 2021
in Biology
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Just like humans:

IMAGE

Credit: S. Greif.

A new Tel Aviv University study found that, like humans, bats living in Tel Aviv enjoy the wide variety and abundance of food that the city has to offer, in contrast to rural bats living in Beit Guvrin, who are content eating only one type of food. The study was led by research student Katya Egert-Berg, under the guidance of Prof. Yossi Yovel, head of Tel Aviv University’s Sagol School of Neuroscience and a faculty member of the School of Zoology in the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, as well as a recipient of the 2021 Kadar Family Award for Outstanding Research. The study was published in the journal BMC Biology.

The researchers explain that despite the intensification of urbanization processes, which tend to lead animals to leave the city, there are animals that are able to thrive in an urban domain. One such example is the fruit bat. These bats, like humans, live in a variety of environments, including the city and the countryside; there are even some that forage in the city and then go home to roost in the country.

The urban environment is fundamentally different from the rural environment in terms of the diversity and accessibility of food. Although the city has a larger variety of trees per area, there are many challenges that bats have to face, such as buildings and humans. In rural areas, on the other hand, most of the trees are concentrated in orchards without barriers, but have less diversity – the trees are mostly of one type. Because of the fundamental environmental differences between the city and the country with regards to the distribution and variety of fruit trees, the nature of the bats’ movement when foraging in these areas differs as well.

In this new study, the researchers compared the nature of the movement of rural bats and city bats as they foraged for food. They used tiny GPS devices to track the bats, to see if the way they moved while searching for food was affected by their living environment, or the environment in which they were foraging.

They found that fruit bats foraging in the city are much more exploratory, enjoy the abundance of the urban environment, visit a variety of fruit trees every night, and feed from a wide a variety of trees. In contrast, the rural bats focus on only one or two fruit trees each night. Moreover, the researchers found that among the rural bats who roost in the countryside, there were many who left their rural homes every night in search of food in the city, and then flew back to the country after their meal. During their stay in the city, such bats share the same flight patterns as those of the bats that live in the city around the clock.

The study’s findings led the researchers to assess that even bats that live in rural environments their entire lives will be able to orient themselves in an urban, industrialized environment. They explain that there are animal species that are flexible – for them, the ability to adapt to a new and unfamiliar environment such as an urban settlement is an acquired skill. Such species, of which the fruit bats are an example, will in many cases be able to adapt to life in urban areas.

Prof. Yovel: “How animals cope with urbanization is one of the most central and important questions in ecological research today. Understanding the ways in which animals adapt to urban areas can help us in our conservation efforts. The urban environment is characterized by much fragmentation, and we currently have little understanding of how animals, especially small animals, like the bats, move and fly in such areas.”

###

Link to the article:
https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-021-01060-x

Media Contact
Noga Shahar
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12915-021-01060-x

Tags: BehaviorBiologyClimate ChangeEcology/EnvironmentEvolutionPets/EthologySocial/Behavioral ScienceZoology/Veterinary Science
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Optimizing Bacillus cabrialesii HB7 for Saline Stress Relief

Optimizing Bacillus cabrialesii HB7 for Saline Stress Relief

August 5, 2025
Perillyl Alcohol Targets Toxoplasma via Isoprenylation Genes

Perillyl Alcohol Targets Toxoplasma via Isoprenylation Genes

August 5, 2025

Curcuma Compounds and UVA Alleviate Psoriasis in Mice

August 5, 2025

Tiny Protein, Massive Effect: Unraveling How Bacteria Fortify a Crucial Outer Membrane Complex

August 5, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • blank

    Neuropsychiatric Risks Linked to COVID-19 Revealed

    70 shares
    Share 28 Tweet 18
  • Overlooked Dangers: Debunking Common Myths About Skin Cancer Risk in the U.S.

    61 shares
    Share 24 Tweet 15
  • Predicting Colorectal Cancer Using Lifestyle Factors

    46 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 12
  • Dr. Miriam Merad Honored with French Knighthood for Groundbreaking Contributions to Science and Medicine

    46 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 12

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Solving Forensic Mysteries: Genealogy’s Emerging Solutions

Optimizing Bacillus cabrialesii HB7 for Saline Stress Relief

PeroCycle Appoints New CEO and Launches £4M Seed Round to Advance Decarbonization in Steelmaking

  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.