Landscape Ecology Group, Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yunnan, PR China; Center for Conservation Biology, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yunnan, PR China; International College of the University Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, PR China; Zukunftskolleg and the Centre for Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Universitätsstrasse 10, Baden-Württemberg, Konstanz, Germany; Ecology and Conservation Research Laboratory (Eco/Con Lab), Department of Biological Sciences, College of Science and Mathematics, University of Southern Mindanao, Kabacan, North Cotabato, Philippines.
Department of Zoology, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, PR, Brazil.
Sci Total Environ. 2022 Oct 15;843:156909. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.156909. Epub 2022 Jun 23.
Research and media attention is disproportionately focused on taxa and ecosystems perceived as charismatic, while other equally diverse systems such as caves and subterranean ecosystems are often neglected in biodiversity assessments and prioritisations. Highlighting the urgent need for protection, an especially large fraction of cave endemic species may be undescribed. Yet these more challenging systems are also vulnerable, with karsts for example losing a considerable proportion of their area each year. Bats are keystone to cave ecosystems making them potential surrogates to understand cave diversity patterns and identify conservation priorities. On a global scale, almost half (48 %) of known bat species use caves for parts of their life histories, with 32 % endemic to a single country, and 15 % currently threatened. We combined global analysis of cave bats from the IUCN spatial data with site-specific analysis of 1930 bat caves from 46 countries to develop global priorities for the conservation of the most vulnerable subterranean ecosystems. Globally, 28 % of caves showed high bat diversity and were highly threatened. The highest regional concentration of conservation priority caves was in the Palearctic and tropical regions (except the Afrotropical, which requires more intensive cave data sampling). Our results further highlight the importance of prioritising bat caves by incorporating locally collected data and optimising parameter selection (i.e., appropriate landscape features and threats). Finally, to protect and conserve these ecosystems it is crucial that we use frameworks such as this to identify priorities in species and habitat-level and map vulnerable underground habitats with the highest biodiversity and distinctiveness.
研究和媒体的注意力不成比例地集中在被认为具有魅力的分类群和生态系统上，而其他同样多样化的系统，如洞穴和地下生态系统，在生物多样性评估和优先排序中往往被忽视。突出了保护的紧迫性，特别是很大一部分洞穴特有物种可能尚未被描述。然而，这些更具挑战性的系统也很脆弱，例如喀斯特地貌每年都会失去相当一部分面积。蝙蝠是洞穴生态系统的关键，使它们成为了解洞穴多样性模式和确定保护优先事项的潜在替代品。在全球范围内，近一半（48%）已知的蝙蝠物种在其生命史的某些阶段使用洞穴，其中 32%是一个国家特有的，15%目前受到威胁。我们结合了 IUCN 空间数据中洞穴蝙蝠的全球分析以及来自 46 个国家的 1930 个蝙蝠洞穴的特定地点分析，为保护最脆弱的地下生态系统制定了全球保护优先事项。在全球范围内，28%的洞穴显示出高度的蝙蝠多样性和高度的威胁。保护优先洞穴的区域集中程度最高的是在古北界和热带地区（除了热带非洲，需要更多的洞穴数据采样）。我们的研究结果进一步强调了通过纳入当地收集的数据和优化参数选择（即适当的景观特征和威胁）来优先考虑蝙蝠洞穴的重要性。最后，为了保护和保护这些生态系统，我们必须使用这种框架来确定物种和栖息地层面的优先事项，并绘制具有最高生物多样性和独特性的脆弱地下栖息地图。
