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Recording Amazonian phantoms
Assessment of the long-term effects of forest fragmentation
on aerial insectivorous bats in the Amazonian rainforest using
autonomous ultrasound recording stations
Adrià López Baucells
PhD Student CE Group, cE3c
Amazonian rainforests are under constant anthropogenic pressure. Of all the types of human
activities that affect them, forest fragmentation probably has the greatest implications for
conservation. Due to the prevailing pattern of land-use change landscapes that are
comprised of a mosaic of recovering and mature forests that encompass structurally and
ecologically different habitats are increasingly common. In the Neotropics, aerial
insectivorous bat ensembles are barely known and many species are still considered as data
deficient. The long-term impacts of forest fragmentation on aerial insectivorous bats will be
assessed at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragmentation Project (Brazil). Fragmentation
effects to date have mostly been studied in phyllostomid bats, but remain understudied for
aerial insectivorous bats. Based on research carried out between 1996 and 1999 at the
BDFFP, the same experimental sites (39 sites, comprising eight forest fragments of different
sizes, nine control plots in continuous forest (CF) and 22 sites equally divided between forest
edges and nearby secondary forest matrix) have been resurveyed. This project therefore
constitute the first long-term study capable of elucidating temporal changes in responses of
tropical aerial insectivorous bats to fragmentation. Additionally it aimed to determine the
differences in vertical stratification in the activity of aerial insectivorous bat species in
primary and secondary forests in “terra firme”. This project is basically pioneering the use of
automatic recording stations in the Amazonian rainforest. An open-source reference call
library for Amazonian bats have been compiled for 29 Central Amazonian aerial insectivorous
bats, and provide crucial data for future impact assessments and monitoring studies.
4ª feira, 20 de Maio de 2015
FCUL (Edif. C6) – 12.00h-13.00h – Sala 6.2.51