Comparing Diversity of Bats in Bako National Park, Matang Wildlife Centre, Permai Lowland Forest and Damai Mangrove Forest

• Main Author: Juliet Beka, Julian Vincent
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, (UNIMAS) 2014
• Subjects: SD Forestry; SF Animal culture
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/33104/2/Comparing%20Diversity%20of%20Bats%20in%20Bako%20National%20Park%2C%20Matang%20Wildlife%20Centre%2C%20Permai%20Lowland%20Forest%20and%20Damai%20Mangrove%20Forest%C2%A0%28fulltext%29.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/33104/

The diversity of the chiropteran species was studied and compared for four different sites namely Bako National Park (BNP), Matang Wildlife Centre (MWC), Pennai Lowland Forest (PLF) and Damai Mangrove Forest (DMF). The study was with the same number of sampling days (4 days) and sampling effort (4 harp traps, 20 mist nets) for each site. Sampling was conducted at BNP from February 25=-28 2013, at MWC from July 4 7 2013, at PLF from November 3'-6 2013 and at DMF from February 10-13 2014. A total of 23 bats species with 288 individuals were captured in all four sites. The highest capture rate from the study sites was Hipposideros cervinus (120 individuals), followed by Cynopterus brachyotis (82 individuals). Results showed MWC had the highest number of species (16 species). However, PLF had the highest index of species diversity. Cluster analyses showed that the dendrogram diagrams between BNP and MWC studies was higher in similarity, whereas DMF study was the outgroup of all the studies. PLF however shared similarities with all the study areas. The accumulation curves of the species collected from four study sites however did not reach the asymptote which showing that the trapping-day was not sufficient to represent the overall bats in the areas. Therefore, to increase the capture rate, more sampling effort with the right technique will be needed. Based on the estimation by the estimators, some unseen species has not been discovered yet.