Murciélagos en agroecosistemas cafeteros de Colombia
Harold Castaño, JohnE. Botero, JorgeVelásquez, SusanaDavid Corrales, Juan
Colombia has near 180 bat species and is the second richest country in bats at the world and first for all America. Of these species, 59% are in the Andean zone, where also most of the country socioeconomic activity is concentrated and where severe processes of natural habitat transformation happen. From October of 2002 until January of 2003, a bat study was made in eight localities of the Departments of Calda, Quindío and Risaralda. Altogether 807 individuals pertaining to 33 species of bats, 16 genus and four families were captured. Saccopteryx bilineata was in this study registered for the first time for the Colombian Andes. In spite of the high degree of human intervention, the coffee rural landscapes lodge an important number of species of bats and the abundance of frugivores and nectarivores indicate that the pollination and seed dispersion would be the more important environmental services that bats are offering in agroecosystems.