Fig. 4.

Renal and metabolic adaptations in frugivorous bats. A number of renal transporter genes (red, left side) that are specifically lost in fruit bats (large and black flying foxes) reduce urine osmolality in a mouse knockout. Thus, these gene losses likely contribute to the ability of fruit bats to efficiently excrete excess dietary water. Losses of metabolic genes (red, right side) are likely adaptive by improving the processing of the sugar-rich fruit juice. In contrast, gene losses shown in blue are probably a consequence of adapting to the frugivorous diet. These genes provide new insights into the metabolism of bats and corroborate the strong dependence of internal organs on using sugar as the main energy source. Please see Supplementary Figs. 21–31 for the inactivating mutations in these 11 genes