Rapid assessment of bat diversity in the Taita Hills Afromontane cloud forests, southeastern Kenya

Abstract

Tropical mountain ranges are known to support high biodiversity. In addition to their role as refuge habitat, complex topography within these ecosystems promotes the development of diverse species traits and evolutionary divergence. However, species within these environments also face severe anthropological threats, most notably from habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, and climate change. A primary example is the Taita Hills in Kenya, which forms the northernmost portion of the biodiversity rich Eastern Arc Mountains. Despite the high biodiversity potential for the area, little is known regarding chiropteran diversity. In order to address this lack of knowledge, we conducted a rapid biological survey of bats during January-February 2016. Our trapping effort was focused on different habitat types (e.g. highland cloud rainforest fragments, lowland riverbeds and human structures) and diverse trapping methods were used (e.g. mist-netting and hand-netting). A total of 169 bats belonging to at least 19 species from 7 different families were captured across 16 sampling sites. We report 10 new species records for the Taita Hills region, including the first record of Miniopterus mossambicus for East Africa, with a major range expansion in its distribution, as well as the first echolocation call for Glauconycteris argentata in eastern Africa. Several cases of probable species complexes were also identified, which are the focus of ongoing molecular work. Together, our results demonstrate that the Taita Hills region is home to rich bat diversity, not yet completely assessed, and emphasizes the urgent need to conserve the remaining forest fragments.

Roost selection by synanthropic bats in rural Kenya: implications for human–wildlife conflict and zoonotic pathogen spillover

“…Urbanization has dramatically increased over recent decades in Taita-Taveta County, with over 95% of original forest cover cleared and a 700% increase in development landcover [ 34 , 35 ]. Bat diversity is high here, with over 30 species recorded in the county [ 36 ] and humans often have bats living in their buildings (electronic supplementary material, figure S2). The region has also been identified as a hotspot for zoonotic disease emergence and numerous bat species in the area are known to host a diversity of pathogens [ 27 , 28 , 37 ].…”

Bat activity in the interior of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and adjacent farmlands in Kenya

“…and Vespertilionidae (Vesper bats, 36 spp.). While several ecological studies have been undertaken on bats in Kenya (McWilliam 1987, Webala et al 2004, Wechuli et al 2016, López-Baucells et al 2016, the absence of specific country bat call libraries in Africa which document calls of local bat species limits accurate identification of calls from acoustic detectors (Monadjem et al 2017). Although none of the previous bat studies in Kenya were on bat activity, two (Webala et al 2004, Wechuli et al 2016 which concomitantly investigated bat diversity in protected areas and agricultural landscapes, showed that the farmlands had low species richness as compared to the protected areas.…”