Beyond the Amazon Forest: Richness and Abundance of Bats in the Understory of Savannahs, Campinaranas and Terra Firme Forest

Carvalho, William Douglas de; Gomes, Luiz Antonio Costa; Castro, Isaí Jorge de; Martins, Ana Carolina Moreira; Esbérard, Carlos Eduardo Lustosa; Mustin, Karen

doi:10.3161/15081109acc2018.20.2.011

Cited by 13 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…For all analyses, except for species richness, we considered only those species that had more than five captures (see Supplementary Table S3). We did this because species with few captures in our study, such as Artibeus concolor, Glossophaga soricina, and Gardnerycteris crenulatum, are relatively frequently captured in areas of Amazonian savannahs when higher sampling effort is employed (see Bernard and Fenton, 2002;Carvalho et al, 2018). Therefore, we cannot be sure that these species were wellsampled in our study, and as such removing them should avoid biasing our results due to our low sampling effort.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We captured bats during one night in each plot, between July and August 2017, using nine mist-nests (12 × 3 m; 14 mm mesh size) set in the understorey. This sampling period fell within the rainy season, the time of year with the highest bat capture rates in the northern Brazilian Amazon (Carvalho et al, 2018). The mist-nets were set up at dusk, around 18:00 h, and were kept open until 00:00 h. The total sampling effort, calculated according to Straube and Bianconi (2002), was 34,992 m2 * h, being 11,664 m2 * h for each of the three vegetation types sampled.…”

Section: Bat Capturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Amazonian savannahs are a natural mosaic of vegetation with forest patches, gallery forests and palm forests of different sizes and structures immersed in a matrix of savannah (Mustin et al, 2017). So far, at least 100 bat species have been recorded in these savannahs (Aguirre, 2002;Bernard and Fenton, 2002;Loayza and Loiselle, 2009;Silva et al, 2013;Carvalho et al, 2018;Lim and Lee, 2018), with studies showing that this ecosystem has the same species richness, but higher abundance of bats than continuous forest (Bernard and Fenton, 2002;Carvalho et al, 2018). In addition, in this natural mosaic of vegetation, bats have high mobility and readily traverse the savannah matrix (Bernard and Fenton, 2003;Loayza and Loiselle, 2009), which may reflect the long history of natural fragmentation in this landscape, such that species are adapted to the configuration of forest patches in a mosaic of savannahs (Bernard and Fenton, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Consequences of Replacing Native Savannahs With Acacia Plantations for the Taxonomic, Functional, and Phylogenetic α- and β-Diversity of Bats in the Northern Brazilian Amazon

et al. 2020

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Across the globe, millions of hectares of native vegetation have been replaced by commercial plantations, with negative consequences for biodiversity. The effects of the replacement of native vegetation with commercial plantations on the functional and phylogenetic diversity of bat assemblages remain understudied, and most studies have focused exclusively on the taxonomic component of diversity. Here, we investigate how the replacement of natural savannahs by acacia plantations affects the α- and β-diversity of bat assemblages. We sampled bats, using mist-nets at ground level, in natural forest, savannah areas and acacia plantations, in the Lavrados de Roraima in the northern Brazilian Amazon. Our results show that, in general, acacia is less diverse than native forests in terms of taxonomic and functional diversity, and is also less taxonomically diverse than the savannah matrix which it substitutes. The observed patterns of α- and β-diversity found in the present study are in large part driven by the superabundance of one generalist and opportunistic species, Carollia perspicillata, in the acacia plantations. Taken together, our results show that the replacement of areas of natural savannah by acacia plantations causes a regional loss in diversity across all diversity dimensions: taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic. However, further studies are required to fully understand the ecological and conservation implications of this landscape change.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bat Capturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Consequences of Replacing Native Savannahs With Acacia Plantations for the Taxonomic, Functional, and Phylogenetic α- and β-Diversity of Bats in the Northern Brazilian Amazon

et al. 2020

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“…We used a previous compilation by Santos et al (2019) that assembled data for 44 bat communities in the Amazon as a starting point for our dataset. In addition, we included another eight communities available in the literature (Peracchi et al, 1984;Martins et al, 2006Martins et al, , 2011Patterson et al, 2006;Peters et al, 2006;Rex et al, 2008;Carvalho et al, 2018;Carrasco-Rueda et al, 2021). Finally, we supplemented our database by extracting information on the distribution of individual bat species in the Amazon from Aguiar et al (2020).…”

Section: Communities and Phylogenetic Datasetmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flying Over Amazonian Waters: The Role of Rivers on the Distribution and Endemism Patterns of Neotropical Bats

Silva

Oliveira²,

Zangrandi³

et al. 2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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The Amazon comprises many of the largest rivers in the planet and also houses some of the richest bat communities in the world. Rivers are important geographic barriers for the dispersal and distribution of different taxa worldwide and, particularly in the Amazon region, they form the conceptual and empirical bases for the recognition of the so-called Areas of Endemism of terrestrial vertebrates. Despite the vast literature on the role of rivers on vertebrate community structure in the Amazon Forest, this process has never been investigated using a comprehensive dataset of Neotropical bat communities in the region. In this study, we aimed at: (1) evaluating the patterns of bat endemism across the Amazon Forest; (2) testing for the relationship between the distribution of bat species in the Amazon and the interfluve Areas of Endemism as currently recognized, and; (3) analyzing the importance of major Amazonian rivers in bat beta-diversity (turnover and nestedness) in the Amazon. Our results indicate that rivers are not major barriers for the current distribution of most bat species, and bat community composition breaks were divided into two clusters separating the east and west regions, and a third cluster in northern Amazon. In addition, there was no significant overlap among species distribution limits and the interfluve Areas of Endemism. Interestingly, the geographic patterns that we found for bat communities composition breaks highly resembles the one recovered using bird communities, suggesting that similar ecological and historical drivers might be acting to determine the distribution of flying vertebrates in the Amazon. Moreover, Amazonian bat distribution and endemism patterns were likely shaped by factors other than rivers, such as species interactions and the current environmental conditions. In conclusion, our results highlight the importance of modern analytical approaches to investigate large scale ecological patterns in the Neotropical region, and also challenge the widely recognized role of rivers on the determination of community structure and endemism patterns in the Amazon Forest, at least for bats.

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“…In the Amazon rainforest, terrain elevation and vegetation structure are already well documented as predictors of bat community structure , Carvalho et al 2018, Marques et al 2012, Silva 2012. However, the studies showing these links have been carried out comparing very different habitat types: terra firme versus floodplain (Bobrowiec et al 2014), terra firme versus savannas versus campinaranas (Carvalho et al 2018) and terra firme versus floodplain versus igapó (Ramos Pereira et al 2010). As such, observed changes in species composition are abrupt due to more pronounced differences in the terrain elevation and the vegetation composition and structure between habitats.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bat diversity is driven by elevation and distance to the nearest watercourse in aterra firmeforest in the northeastern Brazilian Amazon

et al. 2022

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Variations in environmental conditions along gradients play an important role in species distribution through environmental filtering of morphological and physiological traits; however, their effects on bat diversity remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate the effect of the distance to the nearest watercourse, terrain elevation, vegetation clutter, basal area and canopy height on taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity and on the predominance of some functional traits (body mass, wing morphology and trophic level) of bat assemblages (phyllostomid and mormoopid bats) in a terra firme forest, in the northeastern Brazilian Amazon. We captured bats using mist nets in 15 permanent plots over a 25 km2 area of continuous forest. We captured 279 individuals belonging to 28 species with a total of 77.760 m2.h of sampling effort. Our results showed that bat richness increases as a function of distance to the nearest watercourse and that the assemblage also changes, with more diverse taxonomic and functional groups in areas further from the watercourse. Furthermore, elevation positively affects species richness, and the basal area of the forest positively influences the average body mass of bats. Taken together, our results demonstrate that subtle variations in the environmental conditions along a local scale gradient impact on the main dimensions of bat diversity in primary forests.

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Beyond the Amazon Forest: Richness and Abundance of Bats in the Understory of Savannahs, Campinaranas and Terra Firme Forest

Cited by 13 publications

References 78 publications

Consequences of Replacing Native Savannahs With Acacia Plantations for the Taxonomic, Functional, and Phylogenetic α- and β-Diversity of Bats in the Northern Brazilian Amazon

Consequences of Replacing Native Savannahs With Acacia Plantations for the Taxonomic, Functional, and Phylogenetic α- and β-Diversity of Bats in the Northern Brazilian Amazon

Flying Over Amazonian Waters: The Role of Rivers on the Distribution and Endemism Patterns of Neotropical Bats

Bat diversity is driven by elevation and distance to the nearest watercourse in aterra firmeforest in the northeastern Brazilian Amazon

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