Not all farms are created equal: Shady African cocoa farms promote a richer bat fauna

Bats provide important pest suppression services with economic value to cocoa farmers, yet the impact of cocoa farm management on bat diversity metrics is still poorly understood. This is especially important if we consider that Afrotropical cocoa farms supply 68 % of the world's chocolate market, with expected increases in production in the forthcoming decades. In this study, we investigated for the first time how bat abundance, richness and diversity varied between African cocoa farms with different levels of shade tree cover, shade tree communities and cocoa characteristics. We found that shade tree cover and shade tree height were the main drivers associated with an increase of Shannon diversity, and abundance and richness of insectivores. Frugivorous and nectarivorous bats were positively associated with the presence of planted shade trees, but richness varied with the size of shade trees. The insectivorous Hipposideros fuliginosus was only present in high shade farms, being captured 51 times only in this shade system, while the frugivorous Myonycteris angolensis was associated with low shade farms. Our findings show that indeed not all farms are created equal, with high shade farms with large, tall forest shade trees (i.e., containing key plant resources) having richer bat communities. Therefore, policymakers seeking to conserve wildlife within cocoa farming systems should adopt cocoa management systems like those mentioned above and promote a combination of forest and planted shade trees to be able support a rich community of insectivorous, frugivorous and nectarivorous bats and maintain their associated ecosystems services

Diversity pattern of bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) in a modified tropical environment in the western region of Cameroon

The western region of Cameroon is one of the leading agricultural production areas in sub-Saharan Africa, and this ongoing  anthropogenic perturbation has led to the replacement of natural forests with agroecosystems. Such anthropogenic landscape  transformations may have affected bat species composition and abundance in the area. Our study assessed the response of bat assemblages to these changes, by comparing species diversity and abundance across four distinct habitat types within the region: cultivated farms (transformed landscape), savannah and gallery forest (both representing degraded areas), and secondary forest. A total of 442 individuals assigned to 25 species were captured using ground-level mist nets. The cultivated farms recorded the highest bat species richness (13 species) and abundance (145 individuals), whereas the gallery forest had the lowest species richness (six species) and abundance (62 individuals). Myonycteris angolensis had the highest relative abundance in the region, with large numbers captured in cultivated farms. According to the rank-frequency diagram, bat assemblages in cultivated farms (Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) = 53.7), gallery forest (AIC = 27.7), and secondary forest (AIC = 48.5) are distributed according to the pre-emption model, whereas the distribution in the savannah (AIC = 40.0) follow the null model. Generalised linear models revealed significant differences in species and relative abundance across the four habitat types. Keywords: agroecosystem, anthropogenic, null model, pre-emption model, rank-frequenc