Rapid gastrointestinal tract transit time in volant vertebrates, with implications for gut microbiome convergence: Results from a meta-analysis

Bats show significantly faster gastrointestinal digesta transit times than non-volant vertebrates, and phylogenetic analysis links flight and diet to strong variation across taxa.

• Why it matters: Quantifying gut passage times for bats is needed to test whether volant adaptations reduce transit time and potentially shape gut microbiome patterns.
• What they did: The authors meta-analyzed published digesta passage times across vertebrates, comparing volant versus non-volant groups while modeling effects of body mass and diet, then used phylogenetic comparative analysis.
• The result: Flight and diet strongly affect GIT transit times, and the faster bat turnover implied by these results may help explain convergence with flying birds in gut microbiome composition dominated by Pseudomonadota.

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