Borneo’s rainforests are renowned for their high levels of biodiversity, including >93 species of bat, but are facing unprecedented levels of conversion. In a bid to safeguard Borneo’s biodiversity the governments of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia recently signed a declaration to conserve 22 million ha of continuous habitat within the Heart of Borneo (HoB) transboundary conservation area. Surprisingly, very little is known of the diversity and distributions of much of the wildlife within the HoB, particularly for bats. This study characterised insectivorous bat assemblages across ten sites within the HoB to inform decisions for possible extensions to the area, and also provide valuable information on patterns of diversity within Brunei Darussalam.
Harp trap surveys captured 1,362 bats from six sites in Brunei, which added 15 bat species to the national species list. Together with data from four additional sites in Sabah and Sarawak the surveys showed that bat assemblages are quite similar (i.e. beta diversity is low) across large tracts of undisturbed forest, and that subtle differences between sites are mostly driven by the abundances of a few cave-roosting species (e.g. Hipposideros cervinus). Analyses showed that areas prioritised as extensions to the HoB in coastal Brunei supported the fewest bat species at the lowest densities, and that inland forest catchments supported high bat diversity. One of these catchments, Sungai Ingei, is being considered by the Brunei government as a new national park.
The article has recently been published online in Biodiversity and Conservation:
Struebig M, Bozek M, Hildebrand J, Rossiter S, & Lane D (2012) Bat diversity in the lowland forests of the Heart of Borneo. Biodiversity and conservation, DOI: 10.1007/s10531-012-0393-0
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