Abstract
Bat fauna is surveyed mainly by mist-nets set in the ground level, and usually employing six hours per night of capture comprising the first peak of activity to most bat groups. Bat inventories with whole-night sampling effort (12 hours) have not been conducted so far in the northeastern of Brazil. This paper aims to report a whole-night survey of the bat assemblage from Alagoa Grande, a Caatinga site in the state of Paraíba, northeastern Brazil. Additionally, we compared the species richness and abundance between the two halves of the night, from dusk (5h p.m.) to 11h p.m., and 11h p.m. to dawn (5h a.m.). We conducted 15 nights of sampling from September/2010 to January/2011, sampling three nights per month. A total of 56 individuals belonging to 12 species were captured, with Rhynchonycteris naso and Artibeus planirostris being the most abundant species. The Chao1 richness estimator predicted an average estimated richness of 18 species. There was no significant difference in the species richness between the first and the second halves of the night. However, the second half presented a higher overall abundance and three species were exclusive to each half. Our data highlighted the importance of whole-night samplings, mainly in short surveys.Keywords: whole-night sampling, Caatinga, Chiroptera, diversity, Rhynchonycteris naso.
Highlights
SamplingChiroptera is the second most diverse order of mammals, including nearly 22% of the known living mammalian species, with remarkable ecological and trophic diversity (Wilson and Reeder, 2005; Reis et al, 2007)
Recent studies have shown that Caatinga areas can maintain bat assemblages with similar levels of diversity to the moist tropical areas, which highlights the importance to expand the network of protected areas in this threatened biome (Beltrão et al, 2015)
The survey was held in Fazenda Riachão do Progresso (FRP), located in the municipality of Alagoa Grande, state of Paraíba (07o06’01” S; 35o35’57” W), northeastern Brazil
Summary
SamplingChiroptera is the second most diverse order of mammals, including nearly 22% of the known living mammalian species, with remarkable ecological and trophic diversity (Wilson and Reeder, 2005; Reis et al, 2007). The Caatinga is a semi-arid biome characterized by strong seasonality, irregular rainfall, high mean temperatures and long periods of drought (Menezes et al, 2012). It has a long story of scientific negligence (Santos et al, 2011) that has only started to be well-addressed recently. Recent studies have shown that Caatinga areas can maintain bat assemblages with similar levels of diversity to the moist tropical areas, which highlights the importance to expand the network of protected areas in this threatened biome (Beltrão et al, 2015)
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