Ecology and Conservation of Tropical Biodiversity

Across the tropics, human-induced habitat modification is creating increasingly fragmented landscapes composed of smaller and isolated primary habitat patches. Understanding how habitat alterations affect biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is crucial for effective conservation strategies. The tropics harbour the most extraordinary diversity of species, which fulfil critical ecological functions. At the same time, knowledge on natural history and animal diversity is scarce to null, hindering the advances and improvement of biodiversity conservation.

Our research focuses primarily on bats due to their extreme diversity, their multiple roles in the trophic networks and food webs, their role as bioindicators, and the ecosystem services they provide. They act as pollinators and seed dispersers of a large number of plant species, promoting the restoration of forests in disturbed areas. Moreover, they are both vital prey and biological control agents of animal populations.

We have worked in the Brazilian Amazon, French Guiana and Kenya, and we have now ongoing projects in Madagascar, Equatorial Guinea and Guinea Bissau. We use start-of-the-art and pioneering techniques such as GPS radiotracking, telemetry, bioacoustics or metabarcoding, for example, to unravel ecological patterns that might significantly contribute to understanding animal populations and ecosystem dynamics.

References

• López-Baucells, A., Rowley, S., Rocha, R., Bobrowiec, P. E., Palmeirim, J. M., Farneda, F. Z., & Meyer, C. F. (2022). Interplay between local and landscape-scale effects on the taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of aerial insectivorous Neotropical bats. Landscape Ecology, 1-15.
• Farneda, F. Z., Rocha, R., Aninta, S. G., López Baucells, A., Sampaio, E. M., Palmeirim, J. M., ... & Meyer, C. F. (2022). Bat phylogenetic responses to regenerating Amazonian forests. Journal of Applied Ecology, 59(8), 1986-1996.
• López Bosch, D., Rocha, R., López Baucells, A., Wang, Y., Si, X., Ding, P., ... & Palmeirim, A. F. (2022). Passive acoustic monitoring reveals the role of habitat affinity in sensitivity of sub tropical East Asian bats to fragmentation. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 8(2), 208-221.
• Rocha, R., Fernández-Llamazares, Á., López-Baucells, A., Andriamitandrina, S. F., Andriatafika, Z. E., Temba, E. M., ... & Cabeza, M. (2021). Human-bat interactions in rural southwestern Madagascar through a biocultural lens. Journal of Ethnobiology, 41(1), 53-69.
• López Baucells, A., Yoh, N., Rocha, R., Bobrowiec, P. E., Palmeirim, J. M., & Meyer, C. F. (2021). Optimizing bat bioacoustic surveys in human modified Neotropical landscapes. Ecological Applications, 31(6), e02366.
• Fernández-Llamazares, Á., López-Baucells, A., Velazco, P. M., Gyawali, A., Rocha, R., Terraube, J., & Cabeza, M. (2021). The importance of Indigenous Territories for conserving bat diversity across the Amazon biome. Perspectives in ecology and conservation, 19(1), 10-20.
• Conenna, I., López-Baucells, A., Rocha, R., Ripperger, S., & Cabeza, M. (2019). Movement seasonality in a desert-dwelling bat revealed by miniature GPS loggers. Movement ecology, 7(1), 1-10.
• Rocha, R., Ovaskainen, O., López-Baucells, A., Farneda, F. Z., Sampaio, E. M., Bobrowiec, P. E., ... & Meyer, C. F. (2018). Secondary forest regeneration benefits old-growth specialist bats in a fragmented tropical landscape. Scientific reports, 8(1), 1-9.
• Torrent, L., López Baucells, A., Rocha, R., Bobrowiec, P. E., & Meyer, C. F. (2018). The importance of lakes for bat conservation in Amazonian rainforests: an assessment using autonomous recorders. Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, 4(4), 339-351.
• Fernandez-Llamazares, A., López-Baucells, A., Rocha, R., Andriamitandrina, S. F., Andriatafika, Z. E., Burgas, D., ... & Cabeza, M. (2018). Are sacred caves still safe havens for the endemic bats of Madagascar?. Oryx, 52(2), 271-275.