Abstract
Tropical forests around the world have been lost, mainly because of agricultural activities. Linear elements like riparian vegetation in fragmented tropical landscapes help maintain the native flora and fauna. Information about the role of riparian corridors as a reservoir of bat species, however, is scanty. We assessed the value of riparian corridors on the conservation of phyllostomid bat assemblage in an agricultural landscape of southern Mexico. For 2 years (2011–2013), mist-netting at ground level was carried out twice during the dry season (December to May) and twice during the wet season (June to November) in different habitats: (1) riparian corridors in mature forest, (2) riparian corridors in pasture, (3) continuous forest away from riparian vegetation, and (4) open pastures. Each habitat was replicated three times. To determine the influence of vegetation structure on bat assemblages, all trees (≥10 cm dbh) were sampled in all habitats. Overall, 1752 individuals belonging to 28 species of Phyllostomidae were captured with Sternodermatinae being the most rich and abundant subfamily. Riparian corridors in mature forest and pastures had the greatest species richness and shared 65% of all species. Open pastures had the lowest richness and abundance of bats with no Phyllostominae species recorded. Six of the 18 species recorded could be considered as habitat indicators. There was a positive relationship between bat species composition and tree basal area. Our findings suggest that contrary to our expectations, bats with generalist habits and naturally abundant could be useful detector taxa of habitat modification, rather than bats strongly associated with undisturbed forest. Also in human-dominated landscapes, the maintenance of habitat elements such as large trees in riparian corridors can serve as reservoirs for bat species, especially for those that are strongly associated with undisturbed forest.
Highlights
Habitat loss and fragmentation are considered the most serious threats to biodiversity and the main cause of the current extinction crisis (Laurance and Bierregaard 1997)
Captures in all habitats were dominated by five species: Sturnira lilium (30.1%), Artibeus lituratus (22.9%), A. jamaicensis (11.4%), Uroderma bilobatum (9.6%), and Glossophaga soricina (6.1%), which together represented 80.4% of all captures (Fig. 2)
This suggests that riparian corridors in agricultural landscapes allow the persistence of sensitive phyllostomines, which demonstrates the importance of maintaining different vegetation cover types to conserve bat biodiversity in areas under agricultural land use (Medina et al 2007; Williams-Guillen and Perfecto 2010)
Summary
Habitat loss and fragmentation are considered the most serious threats to biodiversity and the main cause of the current extinction crisis (Laurance and Bierregaard 1997). Many biodiversity hot spots have been converted to agricultural lands (Myers et al 2000; Achard et al 2002). In many of these landscapes, the presence of vegetation along streams is a common feature and is relatively resistant to agricultural practices and small-scale land use changes (Lundy and Montgomery 2010). In fragmented landscapes, riparian vegetation contrasts with adjacent grassland areas as it provides the following landscape elements for the native biota: habitat for many species, corridors for flying and terrestrial animals, connectivity between forest fragments and for fostering network dispersion (Naiman et al 2000; Estrada and Coates-Estrada 2001). Bats use riparian vegetation as flyways during foraging activities, reducing the distance that they need to travel from and to their refuges (Daniel et al 2008)
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