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

Abstract

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

Understanding human-flying fox interactions in the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary as basis for conservation policy interventions

“…The Large Flying Fox is one of the world's largest bats (Stier & Mildenstein 2005). It is one of the largest flying foxes (11 species) out of the total 27 species of the Old World fruit bats (Order Chiroptera, Family Pteropodidae) recorded in the Philippines (Heaney et al 1998;Tanalgo & Hughes 2018). By contrast, the endemic Giant Goldencrowned Flying Fox is the world's heaviest bat at up to 1.4 kg.…”

“…Hunting is the greatest threat to Philippine bats particularly the frugivorous species such as flying foxes (Tanalgo & Hughes 2019). However, there is no known quantitative research conducted on flying foxes within the AMWS (Tanalgo & Hughes 2018).…”

Too many men in the room? The cost of overcrowding for gregarious male cave-dwelling bats

“…Tropical environments often host the most diverse bat assemblages; The Philippines is home to at least 78 bat species, and almost 40 species are cave dwellers (Lawrence et al, 2010;Tanalgo & Hughes, 2018). The world's largest colony of Rousettus amplexicaudatus is estimated to be approximately 1.8 million individuals in the Monfort Bat Cave Sanctuary in the Island Garden City of Samal in Davao del Norte, Philippines (Carpenter et al, 2014).…”