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The effects of urbanization on bats are poorly understood, but published data suggests it might be detrimental to them. Even though urban parks provide refuge to native biota, the nature of the urban landscape exacerbates the insularization process. In order to evaluate if wooded streets in an urban landscape provide connectivity for bats, we compared bat community structure in three different types of habitats: urban parks, wooded streets and non-wooded streets. Sampling occurred monthly from August 2006 to July 2007 in the city of Vitória, southeastern Brazil. Richness, relative abundance and diversity were higher in urban parks and lower in non-wooded streets. Jaccard's similarity index showed that the wooded streets are more similar to non-wooded streets than to urban parks. Urbanization may benefit generalist species by providing new resources, but for specialist species critical resources may be lost and persistence endangered. There is evidence that wooded streets may provide some degree of connectivity for birds in urban landscapes, but our results suggest that this is not the case, with wooded streets being used by few individuals of a few species. Vegetation cover is important to maintain bat diversity in urban centers. Activities like landscape planning and gardening should include biodiversity data in their outputs in order to better design a landscape that improves the likelihood of persistence of bats.

BackgroundDiversity patterns result from ecological to evolutionary processes operating at different spatial and temporal scales. Species trait variation determine the spatial scales at which organisms perceive the environment. Despite this knowledge, the coupling of all these factors to understand how diversity is structured is still deficient. Here, we review the role of ecological and evolutionary processes operating across different hierarchically spatial scales to shape diversity patterns of bats—the second largest mammal order and the only mammals with real flight capability.Main bodyWe observed that flight development and its provision of increased dispersal ability influenced the diversification, life history, geographic distribution, and local interspecific interactions of bats, differently across multiple spatial scales. Niche packing combined with different flight, foraging and echolocation strategies and differential use of air space allowed the coexistence among bats as well as for an increased diversity supported by the environment. Considering distinct bat species distributions across space due to their functional characteristics, we assert that understanding such characteristics in Chiroptera improves the knowledge on ecological processes at different scales. We also point two main knowledge gaps that limit progress on the knowledge on scale-dependence of ecological and evolutionary processes in bats: a geographical bias, showing that research on bats is mainly done in the New World; and the lack of studies addressing the mesoscale (i.e. landscape and metacommunity scales).ConclusionsWe propose that it is essential to couple spatial scales and different zoogeographical regions along with their functional traits, to address bat diversity patterns and understand how they are distributed across the environment. Understanding how bats perceive space is a complex task: all bats can fly, but their perception of space varies with their biological traits.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12898-018-0174-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

In Brazil, restingas are under severe human-induced impacts resulting in habitat degradation and loss and remain one of the less frequently studied ecosystems. The main objectives of the present study are to describe the bat community in a restinga in Paulo Cesar Vinha State Park, Guarapari municipality, state of Espírito Santo, southeastern Brazil. Fieldwork was conducted twice a month from August 2004 to September 2005. A total sampling effort of 40,300 m 2 /h, represents the largest sampling effort for sampling bats in restingas to date. Bats were sampled in five different vegetational types in the area. Captured bats were processed recording information on species, sex, age, forearm length and weight. Shannon Diversity and Jaccard indexes were used to analyse diversity and similarity among habitats in the Park. A total of 554 captures belonging to 14 species and two families were obtained. Noctilio leporinus was recorded through direct observation and an ultra-sound detector also registered the presence of individuals from the family Molossidae, without being possible to distinguish it at specific level. Frugivores were the most representative guild. Richness was higher in Clusia shrubs (11 species) and Caraís lagoon (10 species). Shannon diversity index was estimated at H' = 1.43 for the overall sample, with Caraís lagoon representing the most diverse habitat (H' = 1.60). The greater similarity (J = 0.714) was observed for the two areas under high human influence.