Consequences of a large-scale fragmentation experiment for Neotropical bats : disentangling the relative importance of local and landscape-scale effects

Rocha, R; López-Baucells, A; Farneda, FZ; Groenenberg, M; Bobrowiec, PED; Cabeza, M; Palmeirim, JM; Meyer, CFJ

Abstract

Context
Habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation are widespread drivers of biodiversity decline. Understanding how habitat quality interacts with landscape context, and how they jointly affect species in human-modified landscapes, is of great importance for informing conservation and management.

Objectives
We used a whole-ecosystem manipulation experiment in the Brazilian Amazon to investigate the relative roles of local and landscape attributes in affecting bat assemblages at an interior-edge-matrix disturbance gradient.

Methods
We surveyed bats in 39 sites, comprising continuous forest (CF), fragments, forest edges and intervening secondary regrowth. For each site, we assessed vegetation structure (local-scale variable) and, for five focal scales, quantified habitat amount and four landscape configuration metrics.

Results
Smaller fragments, edges and regrowth sites had fewer species and higher levels of dominance than CF. Regardless of the landscape scale analysed, species richness and evenness were mostly related to the amount of forest cover. Vegetation structure and configurational metrics were important predictors of abundance, whereby the magnitude and direction of response to configurational metrics were scale-dependent. Responses were ensemble-specific with local-scale vegetation structure being more important for frugivorous than for gleaning animalivorous bats.

Conclusions
Our study indicates that scale-sensitive measures of landscape structure are needed for a more comprehensive understanding of the effects of fragmentation on tropical biota. Although forest fragments and regrowth habitats can be of conservation significance for tropical bats our results further emphasize that primary forest is of irreplaceable value, underlining that their conservation can only be achieved by the preservation of large expanses of pristine habitat.

Citation

Rocha, R., López-Baucells, A., Farneda, F., Groenenberg, M., Bobrowiec, P., Cabeza, M., …Meyer, C. (2017). Consequences of a large-scale fragmentation experiment for Neotropical bats : disentangling the relative importance of local and landscape-scale effects. Landscape Ecology, 32(1), 31-45. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-016-0425-3

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 19, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Jul 25, 2016
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2017
• Deposit Date: Jul 28, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 25, 2017
• Journal: Landscape Ecology
• Print ISSN: 0921-2973
• Electronic ISSN: 1572-9761
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 31-45
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-016-0425-3
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10980-016-0425-3
• Related Public URLs: http://link.springer.com/journal/10980
• Additional Information: Funders : Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Portugal;CNPq, Brazil;CAPES, Brazil;Academy of Finland