Abstract
Bats provide fundamental ecosystem services such as pollination, seed dispersal, and insect control. Yet, little is known about their ecology in montane ecosystems embedded in the tropics. We estimated the activity patterns and species richness throughout the year in three habitats of insectivorous bats in a montane ecosystem of central Mexico. To our knowledge, this is the first acoustic monitoring that has been conducted in a mountainous region in central Mexico and the second one conducted in a mountain embedded in America. We recorded 491 bat passes belonging to ten species of the families Vespertilionidae, Mormoopidae, and Molossidae. Four species accounted for 91% of the total activity registered: Myotis volans, M. velifer, M. californicus, and Eptesicus fuscus. Overall activity depended on the time of night, month, habitat, and season. Species composition of the community assemblage of bats among the different habitats was similar, indicating that many individuals would make movements along the habitats present at the mountain. These differences were probably driven by bats exploiting prey availability, which could be determined by the environmental factors present at the different habitats of the park. In this work, some important species were not detected by the acoustic monitoring, indicating that bat captures would complement acoustic surveys and provide a more comprehensive overview of species composition and richness.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the program Por Amor al Planeta 2013, granted by the Volkswagen Company to MMG for financing the fieldwork, to Kurt Hoffman for reviewing and improving the language of the manuscript, and La Malinche Biological station for logistical support. We also thank A. Soto, K. Medina, and all the students that were partially or fully involved in the development of this project.
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The research leading to these results received funding from the program Por Amor al Planeta 2013, granted by the Volkswagen Company to MMG.
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JAB conceived and developed the idea and the experimental design; JAB and RVF collected the data in the field; JAB, AGS, and ILC processed and analyzed the data. All the authors wrote and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Ayala-Berdon, J., Vázquez-Fuerte, R., Guillén-Servent, A. et al. Changes in activity along the year in a community of insectivorous bats inhabiting a montane ecosystem of central Mexico. Mamm Res 67, 219–229 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-022-00620-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13364-022-00620-y