Roosting ecology of insectivorous bats in a tropical agricultural landscape

Abstract

Bats spend more than half of their life in roosts, where key life events transpire. Therefore the availability and selection of roosts are important to bats everywhere, and may limit their ability to exploit every habitat, including agricultural landscapes such as paddy fields, orchards and tea plantations. This study aimed to investigate the day roosts used by insectivorous bat species in tea plantations of Sri Lanka. We surveyed 18 tea plantations where we recorded a total of 44 roosts involving five families and nine species of bats (Hipposideros galeritus, Hipposideros lankadiva, Hipposideros speoris, Rhinolophus beddomei, Rhinolophus rouxii, Megaderma spasma, Pipistrellus ceylonicus, Pipistrellus coromandra and Miniopterus cf. fuliginosus). Most (26) of the recorded roosts were geomorphic, (11) were anthropogenic, and (7) were in vegetation. H. lankadiva and M. cf. fuliginosus are the only species known to roost exclusively in geomorphic roosts; all others were opportunistic. Although protecting bat roosts is crucial for their conservation, it is challenging in view of existing tea management practices. Therefore, natural roosts should be maintained and protected. The introduction of artificial roosts might increase the number of bats able to forage over tea plantations and maximize their consumption of agricultural pests, thereby increasing tea production.

Shrews Under-Represented in Fruit Farms and Homesteads

“…Despite some data on shrews in agricultural and anthropogenic habitats [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ], agro-ecological studies are mostly limited to rodent communities [ 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 ]. Studies on insectivores in anthropogenic habitats are mostly limited to birds and bats [ 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 ], and the same applies to agricultural areas [ 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 ]. As such, the problem is that in some cases, there is no reference point against which to compare recent data [ 71 ].…”