Forest bats in Southern Salamanca (Spain): rare or understudied? Insights from a highly diverse community

Abstract

Forest-dwelling bats are a poorly studied group in Iberia. Little information is available about their abundance, conservation status, and, for some regions, even their distribution. This is the case in the western sector of the Sistema Central mountain range, an interesting area from a biogeographical point of view that potentially could host rich bat communities. However, there is almost no published information about forest bats in the region. From 2017 to 2019 we carried out acoustic and mistnetting surveys in the province of Salamanca (Western Spain), intending to fill this gap in the faunistic knowledge of the area. Our work has revealed a very diverse bat community, reaching 19 species out of the 31 known in Iberia. We obtained new data for forest-specialist species, including many records of the rare Myotis bechsteinii, Barbastella barbastellus and Nyctalus lasiopterus. Most interestingly, we also found a high abundance of Myotis mystacinus which is rarely captured. This study provides novel information about the distribution, status, and ecology of bats in the forests of one western sector of Sistema Central and highlights the importance of the area for conserving these species in the Iberian context. The large number of new records emphasizes the lack of sampling in the region and the need to get better knowledge to develop informed management and conservation decisions.