Figure 5.

Within the New World bat family Phyllostomidae, the evolutionary shift from insectivory to nectarivory or frugivory was accompanied by changes in digestive enzyme activity. An increase in sucrase (A; top right figure) and maltase (B; second from top) activity (which digest plant sugars in the diet), a decrease in trehalase (C; third from top) activity (digests insect sugar trehalose in the diet), and no change in aminopeptidase (D; bottom right) activity (because bats in all diet groups digest protein). In these plots, increasing animal matter in the bats’ natural diet is indicated by increasing δ¹⁵N in the bats’ tissue, and points are species means. The evidence that these correlations represent evolutionary transitions is based on the bats’ diets mapped onto their hypothesized phylogeny, shown on the left. The genera marked with asterisk were included in the data set. Two of the bat genera (Mormoops and Pteronotus) are in a sister family, Mormoopidae. Adapted from reference (248) (Fig. 4.24), with permission; redrawn, with permission, from reference (392).