Bat fauna in urban remnants of Cerrado in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul

Abstract

Campo Grande is the largest city of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, located in the Cerrado domain, a biodiversity hotspot. Urban bat faunas have been poorly studied in Brazil, markedly in cities in the Cerrado region. The main objective here is describing composition, richness, and diversity of bat species which occur in the urban Cerrado remnants of Campo Grande. Bat samplings were carried out with mist-nets from March to August 2009 in eight urban parks. One sampling night was performed per month in each site, except in one; 47 nights at all. Each night, six 2.6 x 12 m nets were kept open for six hours after sunset; the capture effort was 52.790.4 m²/h. We captured 701 bats belonging to 14 species of which 12 were phyllostomids (98.6% of captures). Artibeus lituratus was the dominant species, such as reported in other urban regions in Brazil. Artibeus planirostris was the second most abundant species, in contrast to other urban bat assemblages. Chiroderma doriae, C. villosum, Phyllostomus hastatus e Platyrrhinus helleri were rare and registered for the first time in Campo Grande. Gathering other studies, 24 bat species are known to occur in Campo Grande, a high value among cities in the Cerrado. Bat diversity (H' = 1.65) in Campo Grande was also higher than that reported for other cities in the Cerrado or Atlantic Forest domains. The wide presence of forested parks in the urban zone may partially explain the great richness and diversity of bats in the Campo Grande city.