Diversity, types of diet of bats and their response to Cloud Forest edges, Veracruz, Mexico

Changes in the diversity (richness and abundance) and types of diet of the bat community are a response to the impact of habitat fragmentation and disturbance; its evaluation is necessary to understand the local adaptation or extinction of bats due to changes in the structure of the original landscape of the Cloud Forest (CF). The objective of the study was to compare the diversity and diet types of a community of bats in different types of edge with different disturbance condition of the CF. During a seven-month monitoring period, three mist nets per sampling unit (SU) were placed to capture bats at four edge sites with different disturbance conditions of the CF; bats were identified to the species level, their diversity was described and compared between SU based on the effective number of species, and also, bats were classified by type of diet and by their response to the disturbance condition. A total of 561 individuals of 26 bat species were recorded, showing no differences in the effective number of species per MU. The type of frugivorous diet was represented by 38% of the bat species, while 50% of the recorded species had a vulnerable response to the CF edge disturbance condition. The observed diversity of bats is a bioindicator that despite the disturbance conditions of the CF, the species have been adapting to current and changing landscape conditions.