Nectar-feeding bats burn sugar faster than any other mammal on Earth – and three times faster than even top-class athletes – ecologists have discovered. The findings, published online in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology, illustrate that because they live life on an energetic knife edge, these bats are very vulnerable to any changes in their environment that interrupt their fuel supply for even a short period.

The effect of logging on canopy nectar production in tall forest trees has for the first time been investigated by NSW DPI researchers, with funding from the Honeybee Program of the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and Forests NSW.

In flowers called columbines, evolution of the length of nectar spurs--the long tubes leading to plants' nectar-happens in a way that allows flowers to match the tongue lengths of the pollinators that drink their nectar, biologists have found.

Orchid bees use their extraordinarily long tongues to drink nectar from the deep, tropical flowers only they can access. Researchers have long suspected that this kind of exclusive access came with a mechanical cost. According to common sense and a classic law of fluid mechanics, it's just plain hard to suck thick, viscous nectars up through a long straw.