Aerial insectivorous bats in a cattle ranching landscape in the Colombian foothills

Abstract

Cattle ranching is widely spread in the foothills of the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia, and its impact on aerial insectivorous bats is unknown. We used passive-acoustic monitoring of these bats in a silvopastoral system (SSP) planted with Mimosa trianae, a conventional livestock system dominated by pasture (SC) and a forest (B) in the Eastern Cordillera foothill of Colombia. Species composition of B differed from SC and SSP, whereas there were no differences between SC and SSP. Species richness was higher in the SC than in the other land covers, whereas there were no differences between B and SSP. Myotis nigricans, Peropteryx macrotis, Saccopteryx leptura, Molossus cf. rufus, Eptesicus I and Cormura brevirostris had the highest activity in the landscape, and their habitat use depended on land cover. Most bat species used SC more than the other land covers. We found that the spatial heterogeneity associated with the studied cattle ranching landscape affects both the structure of the bat ensemble and the responses of its species.

Keywords

• agroecosystems
• bioacustics
• chiroptera
• habitat use
• orinoquia
• silvopastoral