Abstract
The edge effect is one of the consequences of forest fragmentation and is one of the main drivers of alteration of ecological and ecosystem processes. Trophic guilds and species of bats have shown differential responses to this phenomenon. Our goal was to describe the change in bat species richness, abundance, evenness, and species composition of trophic guilds associated with a matrix edge-forest interior gradient. Therefore, we conducted a bat sampling with 16 mist nets covering such gradient in four sub-andean forest fragments (10-50 ha). In total, we captured 566 individuals of 21 species of phyllostomid bats. Bat species richness and abundance were higher in the matrix and edge and were similar between fragments. Evenness showed the lowest values in the matrix and forest edge and was different between forest patches. Some shrub frugivorous bats were more abundant in the edge, and others were more abundant in two fragments. Species composition of canopy frugivorous bats was similar along the gradient but was significantly different between fragments. In contrast, the species composition of nectarivores was similar throughout the matrix-interior forest gradient and between patches. Our data suggest that bat responses at assemblage-level are affected by the disturbance gradient from the matrix to forest interior, even at short distances form fragment borders, and are dependent on the trophic guild.
Highlights
Our goal was to describe the change in bat species richness, abundance, evenness, and species composition of trophic guilds associated with a matrix-edge-forest interior gradient
Our data show evidence that edge effects have a significant influence in Andean bat communities even at short distances from the fragment borders (~75 m), where bat species richness, abundance, evenness, and species composition of trophic guilds showed significant variation along the matrix-edge-forest interior gradient of the patches
High species richness and low evenness of bats found in the edges may be related to the indirect edge effects suggested by Murcia (1995)
Summary
Forest edges appear due to discontinuity between two contrasting environments. boundaries and edge habitats are constitutive elements in natural landscape heterogeneity, the proportion of edge habitats has increased in tropical environments because of the increment of forest fragmentation (Laurance 2000, Fletcher Jr. et al 2007, Chazdon 2014). Research made in fragmented landscapes suggest that the edge habitat seems to favor the establishment of opportunist species and affect trophic guilds in different ways (Reis and Muller 1995, Cosson et al 1999, Schulze et al 2000, Estrada and Coates-Estrada 2002, Klingbeil and Willig 2009). In contrast to these results, other investigations did not find significant differences between bat species richness and abundance between interior and edge habitats (Faria 2006, Meyer and Kalko 2008). Significant changes in bat richness or composition were observed in landscapes with matrix highly contrasting to forest patches (e.g. water, Meyer and Kalko 2008), while in landscapes with low contrast between matrix and fragments there were no alterations at the bat community level (Gorresen and Willig 2004)
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