Bats in tea plantations in Sri Lanka: Species richness and distribution

Due to the exponential growth of human population, natural forests are being steadily replaced by areas devoted to agriculture.It is estimated that forty percent of our planet's terrestrial area is allocated to agriculture, causing devastating damage to wildlife.However, on the positive side, the diverse nature of agro-ecosystems offers opportunities for landscape-level approaches to biodiversity conservation.Furthermore, heterogeneous agroecosystems are also known to support rich biological diversity, including bats.Insectivorous bats play a significant role in suppressing insect pests in agro-ecosystems all over the world.Bat insectivory in agricultural landscapes reduces harvest losses and, indirectly, pesticide use, thereby contributing to the production of healthier foods for human consumption.Hence, it is important to understand how insectivorous bats are using different agro-ecosystems.The tea industry contributes significantly to net foreign exchange in the Sri Lankan economy.The diversity of bats exploiting six tea plantations that represent the major tea-growing regions in Sri Lanka was surveyed for one year.We recorded six families and twelve species of bats, eight of which were insectivores.Rhinolophus rouxii was the most commonly recorded species, and was recorded at higher elevations than it has been previously recorded.Similarly, Miniopterus fuliginosus was recorded at Idulgashinna (1590 m), a new maximum elevational record for the species in Sri Lanka.Roosts of seven bat species were documented in the vicinity of each plantation and we provide new breeding observations of three bat species.This study is the first to record four pteropodid bat species in a single tea plantation.This study offers a foundation for future bat studies in the understudied tropical agricultural system of tea plantations.