A checklist of the bats of Peninsular Malaysia and progress towards a DNA barcode reference library

Lim, Voon-Ching; Ramli, Rosli; Bhassu, Subha; Wilson, John James

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0179555

Cited by 774 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 98 publications

(392 reference statements)

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“…The cave nectar bat, Eonycteris spelaea (family: Pteropodidae), is generally categorised as specialised nectarivorous bat ( Fleming, Geiselman & Kress, 2009 ; Stewart & Dudash, 2017 ) that feeds on nectar and pollen, and consequently provides pollination services ( Srithongchuay, Bumrungsri & Sripao-raya, 2008 ; Bumrungsri et al, 2009 ; Acharya et al, 2015a ; Nor Zalipah et al, 2016 ). E. spelaea is one of three nectarivorous bats present in Peninsular Malaysia and is often recorded in urban and agricultural areas ( Lim et al, 2017 ). The capability of E. spelaea to travel long distances for food and visit night-blooming plants with high frequency likely contributes to an important role as a pollinator ( Start & Marshall, 1976 ; Stewart & Dudash, 2017 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollination implications of the diverse diet of tropical nectar-feeding bats roosting in an urban cave

Lim

Ramli

Bhassu

et al. 2018

PeerJ

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BackgroundIntense landscaping often alters the plant composition in urban areas. Knowing which plant species that pollinators are visiting in urban areas is necessary for understanding how landscaping impacts biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. The cave nectar bat, Eonycteris spelaea, is an important pollinator for many plants and is often recorded in human-dominated habitats. Previous studies of the diet of E. spelaea relied on morphological identification of pollen grains found in faeces and on the body of bats and by necessity disregarded other forms of digested plant material present in the faeces (i.e., plant juice and remnants). The main objective of this study was to examine the diet of the nectarivorous bat, E. spelaea, roosting in an urban cave at Batu Caves, Peninsular Malaysia by identifying the plant material present in the faeces of bats using DNA metabarcoding.MethodsFaeces were collected under the roost of E. spelaea once a week from December 2015 to March 2016. Plant DNA was extracted from the faeces, Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified at ITS2 and rbcL regions and mass sequenced. The resultant plant operational taxonomic units were searched against NCBI GenBank for identification.ResultsA total of 55 species of plants were detected from faeces of E. spelaea including Artocarpus heterophyllus, Duabanga grandiflora and Musa spp. which are likely to be important food resources for the cave nectar bat.DiscussionMany native plant species that had not been reported in previous dietary studies of E. spelaea were detected in this study including Bauhinia strychnoidea and Urophyllum leucophlaeum, suggesting that E. spelaea remains a crucial pollinator for these plants even in highly disturbed habitats. The detection of many introduced plant species in the bat faeces indicates that E. spelaea are exploiting them, particularly Xanthostemon chrysanthus, as food resources in urban area. Commercial food crops were detected from all of the faecal samples, suggesting that E. spelaea feed predominantly on the crops particularly jackfruit and banana and play a significant role in pollination of economically important plants. Ferns and figs were also detected in the faeces of E. spelaea suggesting future research avenues to determine whether the ‘specialised nectarivorous’ E. spelaea feed opportunistically on other parts of plants.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pollination implications of the diverse diet of tropical nectar-feeding bats roosting in an urban cave

Lim

Ramli

Bhassu

et al. 2018

PeerJ

Self Cite

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“…With 110 species representing eight families of bats (Lim et al 2017), Peninsular Malaysia hosts the highest density of Old World bat species (i.e., total number of species reported per total area of land) relative to other geopolitical territories within Southeast Asia. There have been several studies conducted to understand the biology of some of these bats in the past, such as the roosting behaviour of two Tylonycteris species (Medway & Marshall 1972) and comparison on the morphological niche and community structure of insectivorous bats from Palaeotropics with those from Neotropics (Heller & Volleth 1995).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bats from the understorey of lowland tropical rainforests across Peninsular Malaysia

2019

Barb

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To date, 110 bat species are recorded in Peninsular Malaysia. Many of these species depend upon tropical forests, which have rapidly decreased in extent over recent decades. Yet, updated information on species distributions in the region is still lacking. Here, we report bat species records and their distribution based from surveys undertaken at 30 lowland tropical rainforest sites across Peninsular Malaysia. We recorded 56 species from seven families. The three most abundant species across the peninsula were Rhinolophus affinis, Hipposideros bicolor complex and Hipposideros cervinus. Four out of nine singleton species (Chironax melanocephalus, Coelops robinsoni, Myotis hermani and Hesperoptenus doriae) are forest specialists that are patchily distributed across the peninsula, while another five are open space/edge species that utilise the forest occasionally. The understorey assemblage comprises frugivorous, insectivorous and nectar-drinking species. Thirteen percent of all captured species are represented by at least one record outside of their previous known distributional range. Furthermore, our study suggests that updated and informative species distribution is essential to further study these bat species since information on their ecology and basic natural history remains poorly known. An improved understanding of species ecology and population status will contribute to more effective conservation efforts. Our survey data provide comprehensive records of understorey forest bats in a biodiversity hotspot.

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“…There are a number of studies (n=6, 4.22%) on the role of the frugivorous bats as seed dispersers in pristine ecosystems within the Philippines (i.e., Ingle, 2003;Gonzales et al, 2009). Yet, there are no documented studies on the flower visitation and pollination role of nectarivorous bats, unlike in many other Southeast Asian countries (e.g., Bumrungsri et al, 2013, Acharya et al, 2015Stewart et al, 2015;Abdul-Aziz et al, 2017;Lim et al, 2017).…”

Section: Bat Ecology and Ecosystem Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bats of the Philippine Islands –a review of research directions and relevance to national-level priorities and targets

Tanalgo

Hughes

2018

Preprint

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7Effective science-based conservation priorities and policies are crucially important to 8 effectively maintain biodiversity into the future. For many threatened species and systems 9 insufficient information exists to generate priorities, or the mechanisms needed to effectively 10 conserve species into the future, and this is especially important in megadiversity countries like 11 the Philippines, threatened by rapid rates of development and with few overarching strategies 12 to maintain their biodiversity. Here, using a bibliographic approach to indicate research 13 strengths and priorities, we summarised scientific information on Philippine bats from 2000-14 2017. We examine relationships between thematic areas and effort allocated for each species 15 bat guild, and conservation status. We found that an average of 7.9 studies was published 16annually with the majority focused on diversity and community surveys. However, research 17 effort is not even between taxonomic groups, thematic areas or species, with disproportionate 18 effort focusing on 'taxonomy and systematics' and 'ecology'. Species effort allocation between 19 threatened and less threatened species does not show a significant difference, though this may 20 be because generalist species are found in many studies, whereas rarer species have single 21 species studies devoted to them. A growing collaborative effort in bat conservation initiatives 22 in the Philippines has focused on the protection of many endemic and threatened species (e.g., 23flying foxes) and their habitats. The implementation of conservation relevant policies, outreach 24 programs, capacity building, and mainstreaming of evidence-based conservation are 25 encouraged to strengthen bat conservation in the Philippines. 26 27

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A checklist of the bats of Peninsular Malaysia and progress towards a DNA barcode reference library

Cited by 774 publications

References 98 publications

Pollination implications of the diverse diet of tropical nectar-feeding bats roosting in an urban cave

Pollination implications of the diverse diet of tropical nectar-feeding bats roosting in an urban cave

Bats from the understorey of lowland tropical rainforests across Peninsular Malaysia

Bats of the Philippine Islands –a review of research directions and relevance to national-level priorities and targets

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