Black pepper’s essential oils affect the foraging behavior of Seba’s fruit-eating bat

Abstract

Neotropical fruit bats of the genus Carollia consume the infructescences of native Piper species. Black pepper, Piper nigrum, a species exotic to the Neotropics, has been planted in several countries of Latin America. Black pepper has been reported as a frequent item in the diet of C. brevicauda and also has found in the diet of C. perspicillata. Essential oils of Neotropical Piper species may attract Carollia bats, and probably increase the value of food containing them. However, since black pepper is originally from Asia, its essential oils may act as chemical defenses against non-dispersers such as the Neotropical fruit bats. Therefore, we used the giving-up density technique (GUD), to evaluate the effect of the essential oils of black pepper in food on the foraging behavior of C. perspicillata. We offered captive male bats artificial food with and without the essential oils of P. nigrum and measured their GUDs. The addition of the essential oils of P. nigrum greatly increased the bats’ GUD, indicating that male C. perspicillata treated such secondary metabolites as toxins.