Optimizing speleological monitoring efforts: insights from long-term data for tropical iron caves

Trevelin, Leonardo Carreira; Simões, Matheus Henrique; Prous, Xavier; Pietrobon, Thadeu; Brandi, Iuri Viana; Jaffé, Rodolfo

doi:10.7717/peerj.11271

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…This pattern only emerges when cave fauna communities are quantified accounting for taxa that do not necessarily complete their life cycle in caves. These findings highlight the key influence of the surrounding landscapes in the occupation of caves and its relevance for biodiversity conservation of subterranean ecosystems 7,9,25 . Furthermore, the integrity of these surrounding landscapes needs to be accounted for when defining the baseline suitability of reference caves used for biodiversity monitoring and cave prioritization protocols that drive environmental licensing and biodiversity offset programs 26 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Complete data about the sampled taxa can be found in Supporting Information Table S1. We coded community data as binary, presence or absence of taxa per cave, instead of abundance, assuming that the variation in abundance across caves could be due to seasonality 9 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A notorious case is the challenge of protecting cave biodiversity, inherent in the fact that caves provide resources for rare and micro-endemic species to complete their life cycles while surrounded by landscapes rich in interesting resources for industry, such as wood, minerals and soil for pasture and agriculture [4][5][6] . Reconciling industrial interests and conservation of cave biodiversity is challenging, but advances have been concentrated in southeastern Amazonia, where the Serra dos Carajás Mineral Province has been widely studied through analyzes of comprehensive speleological databases [7][8][9] .…”

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confidence: 99%

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Caves as wildlife refuges in degraded landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon

Fraga

Tavares

Simões

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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Cross-habitat spillover may be the outcome of a process of habitat loss or degradation where the receiving habitat serves as a refuge for organisms. Once surface habitats are lost or degraded, animals can find underground refuge in caves. This paper is focused on testing whether taxonomic order richness inside caves is positively affected by the loss of the native vegetation cover surrounding caves; whether degradation of native vegetation cover predicts cave community composition; and whether there is a pattern of cave community clusters delimited by similarity in the effects of habitat degradation on animal communities. We gathered a comprehensive speleological dataset consisting of occurrence data of thousands of invertebrates and vertebrates sampled in 864 iron caves in the Amazon, to test the effects of both variables measured inside caves and surrounding landscapes on spatial variation in richness and composition of animal communities. We show that caves can work as refuges for the fauna in landscapes where the native vegetation cover surrounding them was degraded, which was evidenced by landcover change increasing the richness of cave communities and clustering caves by similarity in community composition. Therefore, habitat degradation on the surface should be a key variable when characterizing cave ecosystems for conservation prioritization and offset planning. Habitat degradation causing a cross-habitat spillover effect highlights the importance of maintaining the connection between caves by the surface, especially large caves. Our study can help guide industry and stakeholders working on the complex conciliation between land use and biodiversity conservation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Caves as wildlife refuges in degraded landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon

Fraga

Tavares

Simões

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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“…( Trends in subterranean conservation Pellegrini et al, 2016;Korbel et al, 2017;Mouser et al, 2021;Trevelin et al, 2021). Given that monitoring is applied to test the effectiveness of most other conservation interventions (Table 3), we need to ensure that the performance of monitoring technologies and the reliability of monitoring protocols are comprehensively tested.…”

Section: Legislationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite their perceived importance, only 11% of the proposed monitoring plans and methods were tested. Examples include comparing the effectiveness of different sampling methods in cave systems (Wynne et al ., 2018, 2019) or assessing the detection probability of a given method across diverse environmental conditions (Dole‐Olivier et al ., 2009; Pellegrini et al ., 2016; Korbel et al ., 2017; Mouser et al ., 2021; Trevelin et al ., 2021). Given that monitoring is applied to test the effectiveness of most other conservation interventions (Table 3), we need to ensure that the performance of monitoring technologies and the reliability of monitoring protocols are comprehensively tested.…”

Section: Current Knowledge and Research Trajectories For Conservation...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards evidence‐based conservation of subterranean ecosystems

et al. 2022

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Subterranean ecosystems are among the most widespread environments on Earth, yet we still have poor knowledge of their biodiversity. To raise awareness of subterranean ecosystems, the essential services they provide, and their unique conservation challenges, 2021 and 2022 were designated International Years of Caves and Karst. As these ecosystems have traditionally been overlooked in global conservation agendas and multilateral agreements, a quantitative assessment of solution-based approaches to safeguard subterranean biota and associated habitats is timely. This assessment allows researchers and practitioners to understand the progress made and research needs in subterranean ecology and management. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed and grey literature focused on subterranean ecosystems globally (terrestrial, freshwater, and saltwater systems), to quantify the available evidence-base for the effectiveness of conservation interventions. We selected 708 publications from the years 1964 to 2021 that discussed, recommended, or implemented 1,954 conservation interventions in subterranean ecosystems. We noted a steep increase in the number of studies from the 2000s while, surprisingly, the proportion of studies quantifying the impact of conservation interventions has steadily and significantly decreased in recent years. The effectiveness of 31% of conservation interventions has been tested statistically. We further highlight that 64% of the reported research occurred in the Palearctic and Nearctic biogeographic regions. Assessments of the effectiveness of conservation interventions were heavily biased towards indirect measures (monitoring and risk assessment), a limited sample of organisms (mostly arthropods and bats), and more accessible systems (terrestrial caves). Our results indicate that most conservation science in the field of subterranean biology does not apply a rigorous quantitative approach, resulting in sparse evidence for the effectiveness of interventions. This raises the important question of how to make conservation efforts more feasible to implement, cost-effective, and long-lasting. Although there is no single remedy, we propose a suite of potential solutions to focus our efforts better towards increasing statistical testing and stress the importance of standardising study reporting to facilitate metaanalytical exercises. We also provide a database summarising the available literature, which will help to build quantitative knowledge about interventions likely to yield the greatest impacts depending upon the subterranean species and habitats of interest. We view this as a starting point to shift away from the widespread tendency of recommending conservation interventions based on anecdotal and expert-based information rather than scientific evidence, without quantitatively testing their effectiveness.

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Do you have enough space? Habitat selection of insectivorous cave-dwelling bats in fragmented landscapes of Eastern Amazon

Tavares,

Ribeiro,

Prous

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Individual movements of bats result from a compromise between their recognition of the environment and their potential to fulfill bats’ life requirements, and to the potential threats associated with moving, all of this is mediated by habitat selection. Mining activities produce modifications to the environments that add heterogeneity and fragmentation to the landscapes used by bats, with overall poorly understood consequences to their movements and to the underground-related biodiversity. Cave dwelling bats spend a large part of their life cycle within their roosts, and they are of paramount importance to the subterranean biodiversity because of their constant movements between the external landscapes, which they selectively use, and the underground ecosystems, where they usually apport energy in form of organic matter. We investigated the variation of patterns of habitat use and selection by cave-dwelling bats in a mosaic of disturbed and conserved Eastern Amazonian forests and rupestrian iron-rich savannas (cangas) interspersed in an extensive iron-caves system. We studied the movements of two phylogenetically distant related insectivores, the aerial insect-catcherFuripterus horrens(Furipteridae) and the foliage gleaning batLonchorhina aurita(Phyllostomidae), both cave-dependent in the study area, one of them categorized as threatened to extinction in Brazil, and virtually unknown in terms of their movement behavior, and habitat use. We used radio telemetry to assess habitat use, under the prediction that these species prefer natural and conserved habitats for their foraging bouts, avoiding human-modified habitats. We also anticipated larger range-areas and commuting distances for both species when foraging in disturbed landscapes. Thirty-one bats were monitored in different landscapes (conserved Amazonian ombrophilous forests and cangas, mining sites and pasture) resulting in an average range of 346.9 ± 762.5 ha and an average commuting distance of 1921.5 ± 2269.7 m forF. horrensand of 716.8 ± 1000.6 ha and 2582.2 ± 1966.0 m forL. aurita. Our habitat selection analyses suggest thatFuripterus horrensis an open space forager, with individuals frequently recorded foraging in cangas, andL. auritais a forest forager, although using all habitats proportionally to their availability in the landscape. We did not detect landscape-related effects to the use of space by both species, whereas seasonal variation emerged as a relevant effect. This is the first time that movement data forF. horrensandL. auritais presented. Our study delivers original baseline data on movement behavior and conservation of these threatened cave-dwelling bat species with virtually unknown biology and shed light into constraints related to the optimal and adjusted biological cycles of the bats and their range areas under scenarios of disturbance.

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Optimizing speleological monitoring efforts: insights from long-term data for tropical iron caves

Cited by 3 publications

References 58 publications

Caves as wildlife refuges in degraded landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon

Caves as wildlife refuges in degraded landscapes in the Brazilian Amazon

Towards evidence‐based conservation of subterranean ecosystems

Do you have enough space? Habitat selection of insectivorous cave-dwelling bats in fragmented landscapes of Eastern Amazon

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