Bats of the Serra da Bocaina National Park, southeastern Brazil: an updated species list and a distribution extension for Trinycteris nicefori (Sanborn, 1949)

Ana Cláudia Delciellos,Adarene Motta,Oscar Rocha-Barbosa,Daniela Dias,Brunna Almeida

doi:10.1590/1676-0611-bn-2018-0537

Abstract

Abstract: The Serra da Bocaina National Park (SBNP) is a large remnant of Atlantic Forest located within an endangered biodiversity hotspot, which contributes to the connectivity among protected areas in the region. Despite the ecological importance of the SBNP, its bat fauna is poorly-known, and no comprehensive inventory is available. The present study provides an updated list of the bat species found in the SBNP. The four-year study was based on a capture-mark-recapture approach at four sites within the park, in the municipality of Paraty, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. A total of 22 bat species were recorded, representing two families, Phyllostomidae (n = 19 species) and Vespertillionidae (n = 3). This added 14 species to the known bat fauna of the SBNP, which is hereby updated to 24 species, including Dermanura cinerea Gervais, 1856, Platyrrhinus recifinus (Thomas, 1901), and Myotis ruber (É. Geoffroy, 1806), which are listed as endangered in Rio de Janeiro state. The specimen of Trinycteris nicefori (Sanborn, 1949) captured in the present study is the first record of the occurrence of this species in Rio de Janeiro state. This record extends the geographic range of the species by approximately 650 km to the southeast. Additional inventories, in particular at poorly-studied Atlantic Forest sites, combined with environmental suitability analyses, and taxonomic and biogeographic data, are urgently required to elucidate the distribution of many Brazilian bat species, such as T. nicefori.

Highlights

Bats play fundamentally important functional roles in ecosystems, including seed dispersal and the pollination of an enormous variety of plant species (e.g., Bolívar-Cimé et al 2017)
Twelve capture-mark-recapture sampling sessions were conducted between June 2013 and December 2016 at four sites distributed along the RJ-165 state highway, which traverses the Serra da Bocaina National Park (SBNP) in the municipality of Paraty, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil (Figure 1)
Number of voucher specimens deposited at the mammal collection of the National Museum (MN) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). † Endangered with extinction at national (ICMBio 2016) or state (Bergallo et al 2000) level

Summary

Introduction

Bats play fundamentally important functional roles in ecosystems, including seed dispersal and the pollination of an enormous variety of plant species (e.g., Bolívar-Cimé et al 2017). In this context, frugivorous bats may make a major contribute to the succession and regeneration of tropical forests (Muscarella & Fleming 2007). 180 species (Reis et al 2017), Brazil has one of the most diverse bat faunas of any country in the world (Bernard et al 2011) Most of these species (66.7%) occur in the Atlantic Forest biome (Graipel et al 2017). Local species richness varies considerably along the latitudinal gradient of the Atlantic Forest, ranging from nine species in a seasonal forest in Rio Grande do Sul state (Weber et al 2011) to 40 species in a regenerated forest in Rio de Janeiro state (Esbérard 2003)

Methods

Results

Conclusion