Abstract
In this study, we describe the distribution pattern of bat species and select priority areas for the conservation of the Cerrado based on a systematic planning approach. We estimated species richness and calculated the total beta diversity based on Sørensen’s dissimilarity index (βsor). We estimated the species turnover using Simpson’s dissimilarity index (βsim). We then evaluated the nesting (βsne) by the difference between the dissimilarity indices (βsor and βsim). Based on this analysis, we identified the priority areas for the conservation of bats in the Cerrado based on the zonation approach. We found that the species richness and beta diversity of bats in the Cerrado are concentrated primarily in the central and northern portions of the biome. We also discovered that the conservation units of the Cerrado are ineffective for the protection of species with a restricted distribution (≤ 150 grid cells), such as Vampyrum spectrum, for which we propose the creation of new conservation units that better cover the diversity patterns observed in the present study. By conserving this diversity, we will also be protecting local habitats, which will in turn enable the survival of a wide range of species, and provide the ecosystems with the capacity to respond adequately to future changes in the environment.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aguiar LMS, Bernard E, Machado RB (2014) Habitat use and movements of Glossophaga soricina and Lonchophylla dekeyseri (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) in a Neotropical savannah. Zoologia 31:223–229. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1984-46702014000300003
Aires CC, do Nascimento FO, Césari A (2011) Mammalia, Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae, Rhogeessa hussoni Genoways and Baker, 1996: distribution extension and taxonomic notes. Check List 7:117–119
Aldrich S, Walker R, Simmons C et al (2012) Contentious land change in the Amazon’s arc of deforestation. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 102:103–128
Araújo MB, Guisan A (2006) Five (or so) challenges for species distribution modelling. J Biogeogr 33:1677–1688. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2006.01584.x
Baselga A (2010) Partitioning the turnover and nestedness components of beta diversity. Glob Ecol Biogeogr 19:134–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2009.00490.x
Baselga A, Orme DL (2012) betapart: an R package for the study of beta diversity. Methods Ecol Evol 3:808–812. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-210X.2012.00224.x
Bini LM, Diniz-Filho JAF, Rangel TFLVB et al (2006) Challenging Wallacean and Linnean shortfalls: knowledge gradients and conservation planning in a biodiversity hotspot. Divers Distrib 12:475–482. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1366-9516.2006.00286.x
Cadotte MW, Davies TJ (2010) Rarest of the rare: advances in combining evolutionary distinctiveness and scarcity to inform conservation at biogeographical scales. Divers Distrib 16:376–385. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2010.00650.x
de Oliveira SL, Souza LAS, Silva HK, de Faria KC (2015) Spatial configuration of the occurrence of bat species (Mammalia: Chiroptera) in eastern. Biota Neotrop 15:1–8
Devictor V, Julliard R, Jiguet F (2008) Distribution of specialist and generalist species along spatial gradients of habitat disturbance and fragmentation. Oikos 117:507–514. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0030-1299.2008.16215.x
Diniz-filho JAF, Bini LM, De Oliveira G et al (2009) Macroecologia, biogeografia e áreas prioritárias para conservação no cerrado. Oecologia Bras 13:470–497. https://doi.org/10.4257/oeco.2009.1303.05
Diniz-Filho JAF, Nabout JC, Bini LM et al (2010) Ensemble forecasting shifts in climatically suitable areas for Tropidacris cristata (Orthoptera: Acridoidea: Romaleidae). Insect Conserv Divers 3:213–221. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-4598.2010.00090.x
Diserud OH, Odegaard F (2007) A multiple-site similarity measure. Biol Lett 3:20–22
Elith J, Ferrier S, Guisan A et al (2006) Novel methods improve prediction of species’ distributions from occurrence data. Ecography (Cop) 29:129–151
Estrada A, Coates-Estrada R, Merritt D Jr (1993) Bat species richness and abundance in tropical rain forest fragments in agricultura habitats at Los Tuxtlas, Mexico. Ecography (Cop) 16:309–318
Farneda FZ, Rocha R, López-Baucells A et al (2015) Trait-related responses to habitat fragmentation in Amazonian bats. J Appl Ecol 52:1381–1391. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12490
Felfili JM, Silva Júnior MC (1993) A comparative study of Cerrado (Sensu stricto) vegetation central Brazil. J Trop Ecol 9:277–289
Fielding AH, Bell JF (1997) A review of methods for the assessment of prediction errors in conservation presence/absence models. Environ Conserv 24:38–49
Françoso RD, Brandão R, Nogueira CC et al (2015) Habitat loss and the effectiveness of protected areas in the Cerrado Biodiversity Hotspot. Nat Conserv 13:35–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ncon.2015.04.001
Gardner AL (2008) Mammals of South America, vol 1. The University of Chigago Press, London
Giannini NP, Kalko EKV (2004) Trophic structure in a large assemblage of phyllostomid bats in Panama. Oikos 105:209–220
Gibbs BHK, Rausch L, Munger J et al (2015) Brazil’s soy moratorium. Science 347:377–378. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa0181
Gordon A, Simondson D, White M et al (2009) Integrating conservation planning and landuse planning in urban landscapes. Landsc Urban Plan 91:183–194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2008.12.011
Gorresen PM, Willig MR, Strauss RE (2005) Multivariate analysis of scale-dependent associations between bats and landscape structure. Ecol Appl 15:2126–2136. https://doi.org/10.1890/04-0532
Goslee SC, Urban DL (2007) The ecodist package for dissimilarity-based analysis of ecological data. J Stat Softw 22:1–19. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v022.i07
Grenyer R, Orme CDL, Jackson SF et al (2006) Global distribution and conservation of rare and threatened vertebrates. Nature 444:93–96. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05237
Henle K, Davies KF, Kleyer M et al (2004) Predictors of species sensitivity to fragmentation. Biodivers Conserv 13:207–251. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BIOC.0000004319.91643.9e
Hijmans RJ, Cameron SE, Parra JL et al (2005) Very high resolution interpolated climate surfaces for global land areas. Int J Climatol 25:1965–1978. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1276
Holt RD (2006) Emergent neutrality. Trends Ecol Evol 21:531–533
Jones G, Jacobs DS, Kunz TH et al (2009) Carpe noctem: the importance of bats as bioindicators. Endanger Species Res 8:93–115. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00182
Klink CA, Machado RB (2005) Conservation of the Brazilian cerrado. Conserv Biol 19:707–713
Kunz TH, de Torrez EB, Bauer D et al (2011) Ecosystem services provided by bats. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1223:1–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2011.06004.x
Lapola DM, Schaldach R, Alcamo J et al (2010) Indirect land-use changes can overcome carbon savings from biofuels in Brazil. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:3388–3393. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0907318107
Lapola DM, Martinelli LA, Peres CA et al (2013) Pervasive transition of the Brazilian land-use system. Nat Clim Chang 4:27–35. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2056
Leibold MA, Holyoak M, Mouquet N et al (2004) The metacommunity concept: a framework for multi-scale community ecology. Ecol Lett 7:601–613. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00608.x
Lennon JJ, Koleff P, Greenwood JJD, Gaston KJ (2001) The geographical structure of British bird distributions: diversity, spatial turnover and scale. J Anim Ecol 70:966–979. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0021-8790.2001.00563.x
Loeuille N, Leibold MA (2008) Evolution in metacommunities: on the relative importance of species sorting and monopolization in structuring communities. Am Nat 171:788–799. https://doi.org/10.1086/587745
López-González C, Presley SJ, Lozano A, Stevens RD, Higgins CL (2015) Ecological biogeography of Mexican bats: the relative contributions of habitat heterogeneity, beta diversity, and environmental gradients to species richness and composition patterns. Ecography (Cop) 38:261–272. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.00813
Louzada NSV, do Lima AC, Pessôa leila M et al (2015) New records of phyllostomid bats for the state of Mato Grosso and for the Cerrado of Midwestern Brazil (Mammalia: Chiroptera). Check List 11:1644. https://doi.org/10.15560/11.3.1644
Margules CR, Pressey RL (2000) Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405:243–253. https://doi.org/10.1038/35012251
Medellín RA, Equihua M, Amin MA (2000) Bat diversity and abundance as indicators of disturbance in neotropical rainforests. Conserv Biol 14:1666–1675
Meyer CFJ, Kalko EKV (2008) Assemblage-level responses of phyllostomid bats to tropical forest fragmentation: land-bridge islands as a model system. J Biogeogr 35:1711–1726. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2008.01916.x
Meyer CFJ, Fründ J, Lizano WP, Kalko EKV (2008) Ecological correlates of vulnerability to fragmentation in neotropical bats. J Appl Ecol 45:381–391. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2007.01389.x
Ministerio do Meio Ambiente (MMA) (2009) Florestas do Brasil em Resumo. MMA, Federal
Moilanen A (2007) Landscape Zonation, benefit functions and target-based planning: unifying reserve selection strategies. Biol Conserv 134:571–579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2006.09.008
Moilanen A, Franco AMA, Early RI et al (2005) Prioritizing multiple-use landscapes for conservation: methods for large multi-species planning problems. Proc R Soc 272:1885–1891. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2005.3164
Moilanen A, Meller L, Leppänen J et al (2012) Zonation spatial conservation planning framework and software v. 3.1, user manual
Muylaert RL, Stevens RD, Ribeiro MC (2016) Threshold effect of habitat loss on bat richness in cerrado-forest landscapes. Ecol Appl 26:1854–1867. https://doi.org/10.1890/15-1757.1
Nóbrega CC, De Marco PJ (2011) Unprotecting the rare species: a niche-based gap analysis for odonates in a core Cerrado area. Divers Distrib 17:491–505. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2011.00749.x
Nogueira MR, de Lima IP, Moratelli R et al (2014) Checklist of Brazilian bats, with comments on original records. Check List 10:808–821. https://doi.org/10.15560/10.4.808
Olden JD, Poff NL, Douglas MR et al (2004) Ecological and evolutionary consequences of biotic homogenization. Trends Ecol Evol 19:18–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2003.09.010
Overbeck GE, Vélez-Martin E, Scarano FR et al (2015) Conservation in Brazil needs to include non-forest ecosystems. Divers Distrib. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12380
Paglia AP, Fonseca GA, Rylands AB et al (2012) Lista anotada dos mamíferos do Brasil. Occas Pap Conserv Biol 6:1–76
Pearson RG, Raxworthy CJ, Nakamura M, Peterson AT (2007) Predicting species distributions from small numbers of occurrence records: a test case using cryptic geckos in Madagascar. J Biogeogr 34:102–117. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2006.01594.x
Phillips SJ, Anderson RP, Schapire RE (2006) Maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions. Ecol Model 190:231–259. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2005.03.026
Pine RH, Bishop IR, Jackson RL (1970) Preliminary list of mammals of the Xavantina-Cachimbo expedition (Central Brazil). Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 64:668–670. https://doi.org/10.1016/0035-9203(70)90003-9
Platts PJ, Ahrends A, Gereau RE et al (2010) Can distribution models help refine inventory-based estimates of conservation priority? A case study in the Eastern Arc forests of Tanzania and Kenya. Divers Distrib 16:628–642. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2010.00668.x
R Core Team (2015) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
Raxworthy CJ, Martinez-Meyer E, Horning N et al (2003) Predicting distributions of known and unknown reptile species in Madagascar. Nature 426:837–841. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature02205
Razgour O, Hanmer J, Jones G (2011) Using multi-scale modelling to predict habitat suitability for species of conservation concern: the grey long-eared bat as a case study. Biol Conserv 144:2922–2930. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2011.08.010
Rebelo H, Jones G (2010) Ground validation of presence-only modelling with rare species: a case study on barbastelles Barbastella barbastellus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). J Appl Ecol 47:410–420. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01765.x
Rocchini D, Hortal J, Szabolcs L et al (2011) Accounting for uncertainty when mapping species distributions: the need for maps of ignorance. Prog Phys Geogr 35:211–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309133311399491
Rocha PA, Ferrari SF, Feijó A, Gouveia SF (2015) Zoogeography of south American forest-dwelling bats: disjunct distributions or sampling deficiencies? PLoS ONE 10:e0133276. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133276
Rocha R, Lópes-Baucells A, Farneda FZ et al (2016) Consequences of a large-scale fragmentation experiment for Neotropical bats: disentangling the relative importance of local and landscape-scale effects. Landsc Ecol. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-016-0425-3
Silva JF, Fariñas MR, Felfili JM, Klink CA (2006) Spatial heterogeneity, land use and conservation in the cerrado region of Brazil. J Biogeogr 33:536–548. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2005.01422.x
Smart SM, Thompson K, Marrs RH et al (2006) Biotic homogenization and changes in species diversity across human-modified ecosystems. Proc Biol Sci 273:2659–2665. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2006.3630
Soberón J (2007) Grinnellian and Eltonian niches and geographic distributions of species. Ecol Lett 10:1115–1123. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01107.x
Trindade-Filho J, Loyola RD (2011) Performance and consistency of indicator groups in two biodiversity hotspots. PLoS ONE 6:e19746. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0019746
van Proosdij ASJ, Sosef MSM, Wieringa JJ, Raes N (2016) Minimum required number of specimen records to develop accurate species distribution models. Ecography (Cop) 39:542–552. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.01509
Whittaker RJ, Araújo MB, Jepson P et al (2005) Conservation biogeography: assessment and prospect. Divers Distrib 11:3–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1366-9516.2005.00143.x
Willig MR, Presley SJ, Owen RD, López-González C (2000) Composition and structure of bat assemblages in Paraguay: a subtropical-temperate interface. J Mammal 81:386–401. https://doi.org/10.1644/1545-1542(2000)081<0386:CASOBA>2.0.CO;2
Wisz MS, Hijmans RJ, Li J et al (2008) Effects of sample size on the performance of species distribution models. Divers Distrib 14:763–773. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1472-4642.2008.00482.x
Zortéa M, Alho CJR (2008) Bat diversity of a Cerrado habitat in central Brazil. Biodivers Conserv 17:791–805. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-008-9318-3
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Brazilian agency Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for its financial support.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by David Hawksworth.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Silva, D.C., Vieira, T.B., da Silva, J.M. et al. Biogeography and priority areas for the conservation of bats in the Brazilian Cerrado. Biodivers Conserv 27, 815–828 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-017-1464-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-017-1464-z