Wordley, CFR, Sankaran, M orcid.org/0000-0002-1661-6542, Mudappa, D et al. (1 more author) (2018) Heard but not seen: Comparing bat assemblages and study methods in a mosaic landscape in the Western Ghats of India. Ecology and Evolution, 8 (8). pp. 3883-3894.
Abstract
We used capture (mist‐netting) and acoustic methods to compare the species richness, abundance, and composition of a bat assemblage in different habitats in the Western Ghats of India. In the tropics, catching bats has been more commonly used as a survey method than acoustic recordings. In our study, acoustic methods based on recording echolocation calls detected greater bat activity and more species than mist‐netting. However, some species were detected more frequently or exclusively by capture. Ideally, the two methods should be used together to compensate for the biases in each. Using combined capture and acoustic data, we found that protected forests, forest fragments, and shade coffee plantations hosted similar and diverse species assemblages, although some species were recorded more frequently in protected forests. Tea plantations contained very few species from the overall bat assemblage. In riparian habitats, a strip of forested habitat on the river bank improved the habitat for bats compared to rivers with tea planted up to each bank. Our results show that shade coffee plantations are better bat habitat than tea plantations in biodiversity hotspots. However, if tea is to be the dominant land use, forest fragments and riparian corridors can improve the landscape considerably for bats. We encourage coffee growers to retain traditional plantations with mature native trees, rather than reverting to sun grown coffee or coffee shaded by a few species of timber trees.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | bats, coffee plantations, echolocation, forest fragmentation, riparian corridors, tea plantations |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 18 Apr 2018 11:05 |
Last Modified: | 31 May 2018 13:01 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/ece3.3942 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:129748 |