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Bats of Borneo: diversity, distributions and representation in protected areas

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Abstract

Protected areas are valuable in conserving tropical biodiversity, but an insufficient understanding of species diversity and distributions makes it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness. This is especially true on Borneo, a species rich island shared by three countries, and is particularly concerning for bats, a poorly known component of mammal diversity that may be highly susceptible to landscape changes. We reviewed the diversity, distributions and conservation status of 54 bat species to determine the representation of these taxa in Borneo’s protected areas, and whether these reserves complement each other in terms of bat diversity. Lower and upper bound estimates of bat species composition were characterised in 23 protected areas and the proposed boundaries of the Heart of Borneo conservation area. We used lower and upper bound estimates of species composition. By using actual inventories, species representation was highly irregular, and even if some reserves were included in the Heart of Borneo, the protected area network would still exhibit low complementarity. By inferring species presence from distributions, composition between most reserves was similar, and complementarity was much higher. Predicting species richness using abundance information suggested that bat species representation in reserves may lie between these two extremes. We recommend that researchers better sample biodiversity over the island and address the conservation threats faced in Borneo both within and outside protected areas. While the Heart of Borneo Initiative is commendable, it should not divert attention from other conservation areas.

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Acknowledgements

We are most grateful to all the people who kindly contributed bat records to our database, and/or provided useful discussion on bat conservation issues in Borneo and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. These include Mohd. Tajuddin Abdullah, Mohd. Azlan J. Abd. Gulam Azad, Stephen Brend, Anne Brooke, Susan Cheyne, Louise Craig, Rona Dennis, Fanasudi, Charles Francis, Marty Fujita, Antonia Gorog, Melvin Gumal, Les Hall, Elery Hamilton-Smith, Mark Harrison, Kris Helgen, Robert Hodgkison, Jason Hon, Simon Husson, Faisal Ali Bin Anwarali Khan, Tigga Kingston, Christopher Kofron, David Lane, Suwido Limin, Ibnu Maryanto, Ellen McArthur, Kim McKonkey, Helen Morrogh-Bernard, Cahyo Rahmadi, Juliana Senawi, Indrawati Sendow, Martua Sinaga, Tony Start, Agustinus Suyanto, Gary Wiles and Shigeki Yasuma. Thanks also to Markus Radday for sharing the digitised boundaries of the Heart of Borneo. Bat surveys in Kalimantan were funded by The Nature Conservancy (in part through a grant from the Sall Foundation) and grants awarded to either MS or DP for The Kalimantan Bat Conservation Project from Bat Conservation International, British Ecological Society, Gilchrist Educational Trust, Percy Sladen Memorial Fund, Lubee Bat Conservancy, People’s Trust for Endangered Species, Project Barito Ulu, Royal Geographical Society (Institute of Biology and Rio Tinto Inc.), The Orangutan Foundation and University of East Anglia. Permission to conduct bat research in Kalimantan to MS and DP was kindly granted by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London, E1 4NS, UK

    Matthew J. Struebig

  2. The Nature Conservancy, East Kalimantan Program, Jalan Polantas no. 5, Markoni, Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia

    Lenny Christy & Erik Meijaard

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolution, Biophore, University of Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Dorothea Pio

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  1. Matthew J. Struebig
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Correspondence to Matthew J. Struebig.

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Struebig, M.J., Christy, L., Pio, D. et al. Bats of Borneo: diversity, distributions and representation in protected areas. Biodivers Conserv 19, 449–469 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9482-5

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