Anthropogenic impacts drive habitat suitability in South Asian bats

Srinivasulu, A., Senapathi, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8883-1583 and Gonzalez-Suarez, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5069-8900 (2024) Anthropogenic impacts drive habitat suitability in South Asian bats. Biodiversity and Conservation. ISSN 1572-9710 doi: 10.1007/s10531-024-02941-7

Abstract/Summary

Despite their diversity and importance as ecological indicators and ecosystem service providers, the macroecology of bats in South Asia is poorly understood, and until recently studies on the ecological niches of these species have been rare. This study analyses the ecogeographic predictors of habitat suitability in South Asian bats by conducting ensemble ecological niche modelling using four algorithms (random forests, artificial neural networks, multivariate adaptive regression splines, and maximum entropy) to define suitability envelopes for 48 selected bat species, based on topographic, hydrographic, land-use, land-cover, and other anthropogenic impact factors. Anthropogenic impact variables showed high importance with Median Night-time Light being the biggest driver of habitat suitability for most of the study species with generally lower suitability of brighter areas. Projected suitable areas for individual species covered between 6.28% and 22.98% of the study area. Regions such as the Thar desert of northwestern India were consistently identified to have low suitability. The Western Ghats in India, the Himalayas in Bhutan, northern India, and Nepal, and Sri Lanka were identified as suitability hotspots for more than half the studied species overlapping with human-impacted habitats. This study offers insight into the impacts of anthropogenic pressure on the macroecology of bats in a megadiverse region and stresses the importance of analysing ecogeographic effects on ecological niches and habitat suitability, which can be vital to inform conservation planning and policymaking in the future.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/118961
Item Type	Article
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Life Sciences > School of Biological Sciences > Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Life Sciences > School of Agriculture, Policy and Development > Department of Sustainable Land Management > Centre for Agri-environmental Research (CAER)
Publisher	Springer
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