Bats in urban areas of Brazil: roosts, food resources and parasites in disturbed environments

Abstract

Urbanization is a widespread intense land use that generally results in biodiversity decline. Among the taxa capable to adapt to urban landscapes, bats are particularly ubiquitous. Brazil has one of the world's largest diversity of bat species and one of the highest urbanization rates of the world. Yet, few studies have synthesized the biology of bats in urban environments, especially in Brazil. To fill this gap, we systematically reviewed the published scientific literature on the bat fauna found in urban areas of Brazil. The knowledge of urban bats is still incipient and heterogeneously spatially distributed, mostly concentrated in the southeastern region of the country. The assembled list of 84 urban species, of which nineteen are new species records for urban areas (including one new family), represents 47% of the bat richness registered in the country. Thirty-one bat species (37%) were captured exclusively inside forest fragments. Moreover, we provide information on the resources used within the urban matrix by summarizing the roosting sites for 38 bat species, as well as 31 plants consumed by at least twelve bat species. Regarding parasitological aspects, we listed eleven zoonotic parasites hosted by 27 bat species and discussed their potential to become a public health threat. Likewise, we considered the different features linked to urbanization, including impacts on immunity, body condition and susceptibility to acquiring parasites, as possible bat conservation issues. Finally, we defined an agenda for bat studies in urban areas of Brazil.

FIRST RECORD OF Uroderma magnirostrum DAVIS, 1968 (CHIROPTERA: PHYLLOSTOMIDAE) IN THE NORTHEASTERN ATLANTIC FOREST OF BRAZIL

“…Based on our record and the fact that U. magnirostrum was already reported in other urban forest fragments in Brazil (e.g., Nunes et al 2017), forested areas in urbanized landscapes appear to play a significant role in the maintenance of this species. In spite of the environmental and social importance of the HFCV, soon after the completion of our fieldwork, a relevant part of this studied area was deforested in order to construct houses by the Paraíba State Government.…”

“…It is distributed within all major Brazilian biomes, in Amazon (Bernard & Fenton 2002, Bernard et al 2011, Cerrado (Pine et al 1970, Silva & Anacleto 2011, Caatinga (Mares et al 1981, Rocha et al 2011, and Atlantic Forest (Nogueira et al 2003, Oprea et al 2009; Table 1 and Figure 1). This species is often associated with humid lowland areas and seems to have some level of tolerance to environmental changes due to its occurrence in anthropogenic landscapes, such as urban areas, pastures, orchards, and croplands (Handley 1976, Nunes et al 2017.…”

Research trends on bats in China: A twenty-first century review

“…However, neglecting other roosting habitats results in an incomplete understanding of the bat community structure (Feijó and Rocha, 2017;Flaquer et al, 2007). In addition, species inhabiting forest patches or human settlements near urbanized and agricultural areas are of public health concern due to the higher likelihood of bat-human contact, demanding regular surveillance programs (Nunes et al, 2016). Complementary sampling methods (ground and canopy mist nets, acoustic detectors) should be combined with cave roost surveys in future projects aiming to address community ecology questions.…”

“…Urbanization is an inevitable process, especially in rapidly developing countries as China, leading to deforestation and fragmentation, wellknown major threats to wildlife (lmqvist et al, 2016;McDonald et al, 2013). Particular for bats, urbanization has an uneven effect across species, favoring some while leading others to local extinction (Jung and Threlfall, 2018;Nunes et al, 2016;Russo and Ancillotto, 2015). Nevertheless, in the absence of natural habitats, most of the urban bats seem to be dependent on man-made roosts to survive.…”

Bat Fauna (Chiroptera) in an urban environment in the Atlantic Forest, northeastern Brazil

“…Das 182 espécies desse grupo de mamíferos encontradas no país (SBEQ, 2018), 84, quase metade do total, vivem em centros urbanos, principalmente em parques ou fragmentos florestais (Nunes et al 2016). Apesar de levantamentos de espécies serem essenciais para entender padrões de diversidade biológica (Soulé e Wilcox, 1980) por gerarem dados que subsidiam planos para a conservação (Esberárd, 2003;Bernard et al 2011), poucos estudos sobre morcegos foram conduzidos em grandes centros urbanos (Nunes et al 2017).…”