Abstract:
Global biodiversity is currently facing the sixth mass extinction with a higher background rate than the world has experienced in millions of years. This loss of species is driven by various anthropogenic activities and increasing economic demands, thus, understanding these is critical to determining effective conservation measures in different systems and scales. Bats constitute substantial mammalian biodiversity, with high endemism and functional diversity, which provides various ecosystem services critical for many ecosystems and economies. The wide-ranged distribution of bats across all terrestrial ecosystems makes them ideal ecosystem indicators. Yet, many species and their habitats are continually threatened, under-protected and lack effective conservation measures. To address current threats and prevent future species loss and reduction of their fragile habitats, conservation biologists must create effective priorities that are relevant to policy decision making. In this seminar, I will discuss how using novel tools and different frameworks enable the development of an integrative and holistic approach to identify priorities from national to global scales across different facets of bat conservation. For example, on the global scale, using a global dataset and a novel conservation framework, I developed species-level and habitat-level prioritisation for the world’s cave-dwelling. I found that 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. I 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 cave ecosystems. Globally, 28% of caves showed high diversity and were highly threatened and 4% had high diversity but not currently threatened. Amongst regions, the highest concentration of conservation priority caves was in the Palearctic and tropical regions (except the Afrotropics, which requires more intensive data sampling). Ultimately, developing effective decisions requires comparable data and standardised frameworks to enable its translation into policy and practice. This work highlights the power of good data, integration, and the potential for impacts on policy. I hope that with this thesis we can begin to use data driven approaches to help detect and better protect bats and their habitats and that by working collaboratively we can enhance our understanding of bats across the planet.
Speaker: Dr. Krizler C. Tanalgo
Affiliation: University of Southern Mindanao
Time: 4:30 PM, Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2023
Venue: ZOOM 会议平台 会议 ID：312 430 8960 会议密码 PWD：666666
ZOOM
会议 ID：312 430 8960
会议密码 PWD：666666
