Crops, caves, and bats: deforestation and mining threaten an endemic and endangered bat species ( Lonchophylla : Phyllostomidae) in the Neotropical savannas

Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy

article

Hernani Fernandes Magalhaes Oliveira¹  Guillermo Fandos²  Priscilla Lora Zangrandi³  Hugo do Nascimento Bendini⁴  Daiana Cardoso Silva⁵  Renata Lara Muylaert⁶  Jader Soares Marinho-Filho⁷  Leila Maria Garcia Fonseca⁴  Phillip Rufin⁸  Marcel Schwieder⁸  Fabricius Maia Chaves Bicalho Domingos¹ 

[1] Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná;Institute for Biochemistry and Biology;Independent researcher;Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division, National Institute for Space Research;Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação;Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health Laboratory, Hopkirk Research Institute, Massey University;Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade de Brasília;Geography Dept;Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin;Earth and Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain;Thünen Institute of Farm Economics

关键词: protected areas;    mining;    deforestation;    species distribution models;    Cerrado;    flying mammals;   

DOI  :  10.4404/hystrix-00541-2022

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Associazione Teriologica Italiana

【 摘 要 】

The Nectar's Dekeyser bat (Lonchophylla dekeyseri) is an endangered cave roosting bat species endemic to Neotropical savannas (Cerrado). Even though it is likely highly threatened, there is no current assessment of its conservation status or the conservation of the caves within its distribution. Additionally, a change in the Brazilian law is causing increasing mining pressures to caves. In order to evaluate L. dekeyseri conservation status and the caves within its distribution, we made an extensive literature review looking for occurrence records within the Cerrado, which we used to generate species distribution model (SDM) to predict its potential distribution and understand the main environmental variables driving its occurrence. We also overlapped its potential distribution map and cave sites with information on protected areas and mining pressures. We found that most of its potential distribution is located in the central portion of Cerrado, with a large proportion of this area already deforested (43.74%) or threatened due to mining (55.83%) between 2000 and 2019. Moreover, a large vegetation proportion around the caves within its potential distribution was already converted to pastures (67.50%) and soybean crops (22.03%). Our results revealed that only a small proportion of the species potential distribution (~4%) and a small share of caves suitable for roosting (~15%) are preserved within strictly protected areas. Thus, we call attention to the need of more strictly protected areas across suitable habitat locations in order to cover a larger proportion of the species potential distribution and the caves it might be using for roosting.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC