Bat species richness and activity in Dghoumes National Park (Southwest Tunisia): a preliminary survey

Abstract

Bat fauna in eight of the main habitat types of Dghoumes National Park was inventoried using mist-netting, acoustic detection and roost search. Bats were active at night and recorded near water bodies and street lamps. We recorded the echolocation calls of six bat species: Eptesicus isabellinus, Pipistrellus kuhlii, Vansonia rueppellii, Asellia tridens, Tadarida teniotis and Rhinopoma cystops. Two bat colonies containing 111 individuals of R. cystops were found roosting in Jebel Morra cave and 54 individuals of A. tridens were found roosting in the ceiling of the Ecomuseum. Due to potential disturbance by visitors to the museum, we suggest strengthening management practices to ensure the usage of this roosting site in order to promote the conservation of A. tridens. Data published through GBIF (Doi: 10.15470/0u03uz)

Bats of the Tunisian Desert: Preliminary Data Using Acoustic Identification and First Record of Taphozous nudiventris in the Country

“…This list is somewhat short when compared with the 21 species reported in the country [17,18,23]. Such low richness has already been reported in another Tunisian area of the northern Saharan border, the Dghoumes National Park [22]. These results support the hypothesis of declining bat richness in desert areas (e.g., [1,52]), which has already been reported from Egyptian and mainly Libyan oases [15,[53][54][55].…”

“…Our records extend the range of four Mediterranean bat species (P. kuhlii, E. isabellinus, P. gaisleri, and T. teniotis). P. kuhlii is the most widespread species in Tunisia [17] and was always the most active bat in previous studies in central and northern Tunisia [19][20][21][22], in Egypt and Libyan oases [15,[53][54][55], and in northern Algerian Sahara [41]. However, this extent and numbers benefit from the adaptation of P. kuhlii to desert conditions, with an ecomorphotype that has long been considered a valid species (but see [15,[25][26][27]).…”

“…We used a simple frequency of 38.400 samples/s, 16 bits/sample, and selected 512 pt FFT with a Hamming window for analysis [30]. Recorded calls, including feeding and drinking buzzes [31], were manually identified to species level using the shape and several parameters of calls based on the unpublished sound library of R. Dalhoumi collected in different places in Tunisia [22]. Based on the shape, we distinguished constant-frequency calls (CF), quasi-constant-frequency calls (QCF), frequency-modulated calls (FM), and combinations of these components.…”

“…Bat richness is slightly higher in the northern Algerian Sahara [41] and much higher in Near East deserts [3,[56][57][58]. The short duration of the survey is assuredly a limitation as several desert-dwelling species, such as Rhinopoma cystops or Vansonia rueppellii, which have been reported in central Tunisia [20,22], were not recorded. Even if spring is assuredly the best season for sampling bats, previous studies showed that some species can be detected only at other times of the year depending on the site [20,41].…”

“…In Tunisia, after two reviews [17,18], several studies improved our knowledge of the distribution, habitat, and seasonal activity of bats in the northern and central areas of the country [19][20][21][22]. The unique recent record for the Saharan area was collected during a tourist visit to Jbil National Park, Great Oriental Erg [23].…”