Volume 174, June 2014, Pages 111–119
High similarity between a bat-serviced plant assemblage and that used by humans
Abstract
Indigenous
custodians manage important forest areas and have vital roles in
biodiversity conservation in the Pacific, but their understanding of the
role of bats in rainforest function is limited, and their perception of
bats often negative, possibly compromising opportunities for
conservation. To determine whether bat and forest conservation could be
mediated by the identification of services provided by bats, we assessed
similarity between bat-serviced (pollination and seed dispersal) and
people-valued forest plants in Fiji. In nearly 500 diet samples from all
four Fiji flying-fox species, we found 37 pollen morphospecies
associated with Notopteris macdonaldi, Pteropus samoensis, and Pteropustonganus. Thirteen morphospecies overlapped among bats, but were used in different proportions. No fruit was recorded in the diet of N. macdonaldi. Twenty-two fruit species groups (co-generic species that could not be distinguished) were recorded for Pteropus
spp. A rainforest plant community represented by a survey of 2983
plants contained 75% of species groups valued by people (medicinal,
cultural, economic uses), and bats serviced at least 42% of these
species (96% valued by humans). The high similarity between bat and
human resources (Sørensen’s coefficient, SS = 0.68) increased in a sub-sample of the 30 most abundant tree genera (SS = 0.80). Plant endemism was high in the rainforest community (70%). Most endemic species were valued by people (SS = 0.78 for abundant trees) and serviced by bats (SS = 0.77).
The great overlap between the plant assemblage benefiting from bat
services and that valued by humans indicates that conservation
approaches tailored to individual communities could be developed to
promote bat conservation in traditionally-owned landscapes where
negative perception of bats exists.
Keywords
- Chiroptera;
- Ecosystem services;
- Islands;
- Paleotropical;
- Pteropodidae;
- Traditional ecological knowledge
- Corresponding author. Tel.:
+61 8 830 25194; fax: +61 8 830 25082.
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