Secondary forest regeneration benefits old-growth specialist bats in a fragmented tropical landscape

Rocha, R, Ovaskainen, O, Lopez-Baucells, A, Farneda, F, Sampaio, E, Bobrowiec, P, Cabeza, M, Palmeirim, J and Meyer, CFJ ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9958-8913 2018, 'Secondary forest regeneration benefits old-growth specialist bats in a fragmented tropical landscape' , Scientific Reports, 8 (3819) .

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Abstract

Tropical forest loss and fragmentation are due to increase in coming decades. Understanding how matrix dynamics, especially secondary forest regrowth, can lessen fragmentation impacts is key to understanding species persistence in modified landscapes. Here, we use a whole-ecosystem fragmentation experiment to investigate how bat assemblages are influenced by the regeneration of the secondary forest matrix. We surveyed bats in continuous forest, forest fragments and secondary forest matrix habitats, ~15 and ~30 years after forest clearance, to investigate temporal changes in the occupancy and abundance of old-growth specialist and habitat generalist species. The regeneration of the second growth matrix had overall positive effects on the occupancy and abundance of specialists across all sampled habitats. Conversely, effects on generalist species were negligible for forest fragments and negative for secondary forest. Our results show that the conservation potential of secondary forests for reverting faunal declines in fragmented tropical landscapes increases with secondary forest age and that old-growth specialists, which are often of most conservation concern, are the greatest beneficiaries of secondary forest maturation. Our findings emphasize that the transposition of patterns of biodiversity persistence in island ecosystems to fragmented terrestrial settings can be hampered by the dynamic nature of human dominated landscapes.

Item Type:	Article
Schools:	Schools > School of Environment and Life Sciences > Ecosystems and Environment Research Centre
Journal or Publication Title:	Scientific Reports
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
ISSN:	2045-2322
Related URLs:	Publication
Depositing User:	A Johnson
Date Deposited:	12 Feb 2018 10:29
Last Modified:	12 Mar 2019 00:08
URI:	http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/45184

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