The bat assemblages (Mammalia: Chiroptera) of the serranía de la lindosa are diverse and heterogeneous

Abstract

The Serranía La Lindosa is a geomorphological formation with land cover heterogeneity. This area faces a contradictory situation because it has high biodiversity and provides several ecosystem services, and yet it is one of the current largest deforestation sites in Colombia. Bats is a taxonomic group with high expected diversity in La Lindosa, but there is little published information about this group. This paper presents the results of bat inventories carried out during five years in the Lindosa mountain range. Additionally, diversity is compared in terms of species richness, composition, and structure of bat assemblies in two main types of vegetation cover evident in the area, which are humid forests and casmophytic savannas. Inventories collected information on 735 captured bats, corresponding to 46 species. Of these, 14 species were found only in casmophytic savannas, 11 in humid forests, and 19 in both types of vegetation. Thus, there is high complementarity in bat species composition between the two vegetation types. Additionally, the structure of bat assemblies varied between the two environments, with a proportional distribution of species abundance more homogeneous in casmophytic savannas than in forests. Besides, a higher number of rare species was found in casmophytic savannas. In general, the high diversity of bats of the Serranía de La Lindosa could be associated with vegetation heterogeneity, presence of different cave types and evolutionary history of bat species associated with the Guayana Region.