Orientador: Ariovaldo Pereira da Cruz Neto / Resumo: A perda de habitat é vista como um dos principais efeitos decorrentes das perturbações da paisagem causada pelo homem aos ambientes naturais. Essa gera maior isolamento dos fragmentos e diminui as áreas de contato entre habitat e matriz, com efeitos negativos sobre a biodiversidade. Os efeitos da perda de habitat nos padrões de biodiversidade são geralmente analisados usando dados de distribuição de espécies e / ou abundância relativa. No entanto, eles não podem ser identificados em populações em que esses efeitos ainda não foram refletidos na abundância e incidência de espécies, e não nos informam sobre os mecanismos causais subjacentes às respostas diferenciais de espécies ou populações a essas perturbações. Uma opção para preencher esta lacuna é concentrar-se em quantificar a miríade de processos fisiológicos em que diferentes espécies lidam com ambientes em mudança. Os morcegos apresentam uma grande diversidade morfológica, fisiológica e comportamental, estando presentes em uma diversa variedade de nichos ecológicos, estabelecendo diversas relações críticas para a manutenção dos ecossistemas onde ocorrem. Os morcegos frugívoros estão entre os mais importantes dispersores de sementes do Neotrópico. Juntamente com os morcegos, investigações com seus ectoparasitas específicos são de grande relevância, visto que, os ectoparasitas exercem pressões seletivas importantes sobre a evolução dos seus hospedeiros. Assim, perda de habitat pode trazer importantes mudanças para as popul... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Habitat loss is seen as one of the main effects of man-made landscape disturbances on natural environments. This generates greater isolation of the fragments and reduces the contact areas between habitat and matrix, with negative effects on biodiversity. The effects of habitat loss on biodiversity patterns are generally analyzed using species distribution and / or relative abundance data. However, they cannot be identified in populations where these effects have not yet been reflected in species abundance and incidence, and do not inform us of the causal mechanisms underlying the differential responses of species or populations to these disturbances. One option to bridge this gap is to focus on quantifying the myriad physiological processes in which different species deal with changing environments. Bats have a great morphological, physiological and behavioral diversity, being present in a diverse variety of ecological niches, establishing several critical relationships for the maintenance of the ecosystems where they occur. Fruit bats are among the most important seed dispersers of the Neotropic. Together with bats, investigations with their specific ectoparasites are of great relevance, as ectoparasites exert important selective pressures on their host evolution. Thus, habitat loss can bring about major changes to bat populations and in some biotic interactions such as parasitism. In this context, we use some physiological analysis to (1) evaluate the impacts of habitat los... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

Throughout their world distribution, fruit bats (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) play an extremely important role in forest ecology through seed dispersal and pollination. However, the recognition of their role in maintaining forest ecological diversity has been largely overshadowed by the fact that fruit bats are known to cause damage to a wide variety of cultivated fruits and, as a result, significant effort is undertaken to control fruit bat numbers in areas where crop damage frequently occurs. In Australia, fruit bats of the genus Pteropus (or flying foxes) are well known for their role in destroying valuable fruit crops, particularly along the east coast from Cairns to Sydney. Historical evidence suggests that flying foxes have been culled as an orchard pest in large numbers for the past 80 years. Uncontrolled culling both on-farm and in roosts coupled with extensive habitat destruction in the past century, has resulted in noticeable declines both in flying fox distribution and local population numbers. In New South Wales, flying foxes have been 'protected' under the National Parks and Wildlife Act (1974) since 1986. From that time, fruitgrowers have been required to obtain a licence (referred to as an occupier's licence) from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) to cull flying foxes causing damage to fruit crops. However, despite the 'protected' status of the species, flying foxes continue to be culled in large numbers as an orchard pest. An examination of the management of flying foxes in NSW, has shown that, between 1986-1992, fifteen NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service Districts issued a combined total of 616 occupier's licences to shoot flying foxes with an total allocation of over 240,000 animals. In addition, most flying foxes are culled when the female is carrying her young under wing or when the young remain in the camp but continue to be dependent on her return for survival. Further evidence on the extent of culling includes a widely distributed fruitgrower survey with responses indicating that as few as 50% of the fruitgrowers shooting flying foxes in NSW obtain the required licence from the National Parks and Wildlife Service. While the NPWS has undertaken research into the role of flying foxes in seed dispersal and pollination, management effort largely continues to focus on resolving conflicts between fruitgrowers and flying foxes primarily by issuing culling permits to fruitgrowers. At present, there is no NPWS policy on the management of flying foxes in NSW to guide the administration of the permit system. As a result, the process of issuing permits for flying foxes is largely inconsistent between NPWS Districts. The absence of comprehensive goals and objectives for the management of flying foxes has resulted in the current situation where large numbers of flying foxes are being culled both legally and illegally in the absence of any data on the impacts of unknown culling levels on local flying fox populations. The NPWS has a statutory obligation to manage flying foxes consistent with the 'protected' status of the species in NSW and several well known principles of wildlife management. However, current management of flying foxes in indicates that the Service may be in violation of the requirement to 'protect' and 'conserve' flying foxes as required under the National Parks and Wildlife Act (1974). This study recommends that licences issued to fruitgrowers to cull flying foxes be discontinued immediately and that adequate enforcement be engaged to reduce illegal shooting. This action should continue until such time that research on flying fox populations is able to demonstrate that the culling of flying foxes will not lead populations into decline. Furthermore, management effort should focus on the development of alternative strategies to reduce crop damage by flying foxes and provide incentives for growers to utilize existing control strategies such as netting.

Vocal plasticity is presumed to be a key element underlying the evolution of human speech and language, but the mechanisms and neuroanatomical basis for this plasticity remain largely unknown. The Mexican free-tailed bat, Tadarida brasiliensis, presents a unique opportunity to advance our understanding of the evolution and neurobiology of mammalian vocal communication because this animal displays elements of vocal complexity and plasticity that are more sophisticated than any mammal other than humans, including non-human primates. Current models of vocal control in mammals do not account for the vocal complexity of free-tailed bats. The purpose of this dissertation is to fill that gap in knowledge by identifying a possible neuronal basis for vocal complexity in free-tailed bats. This will be achieved by 1) providing a detailed analysis of the free-tailed bat’s vocal behaviors, 2) mapping the distribution of neurotransmitter receptor types suspected of involvement in vocal control, 3) identifying brain regions that exhibit increased neuronal activity during vocalizing, and 4) pharmacologically manipulating putative vocal control regions to confirm and characterize their function in vocalizing. Analysis of Tadarida’s vocal behavior indicated that they have a vast vocal repertoire, including many different call types, context-dependent sensory-feedback driven vocal plasticity, and syntactically-organized stereotyped songs. Their vocal behavior changed seasonally, so I mapped the distribution of melatonin binding sites in the brain, finding high densities in the striatum, similar to dopamine receptor distribution. I then used immunohistochemical labeling of the immediate early gene cfos to map neuronal activation in brains of highly vocal bats to find ROIs activated by vocal production. This technique not only identified all previously known regions of the mammalian vocal motor pathway but also revealed activity in novel brain regions that could potentially account for vocal plasticity, including a localized region of the basal ganglia, the dorsolateral caudate nucleus, and the anterior cingulate region of the frontal cortex. Pharmacological excitation of these regions evoked complex vocal sequences similar to the songs recorded in the field and lab. These results support the hypothesis that the mammalian basal ganglia may play a crucial role in the plasticity and complexity of mammalian vocal behaviors.

published_or_final_version / Microbiology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Bats are always found in heritage buildings in Hong Kong, especially the vernacular Chinese-style buildings. This is because the natural environment which suitable for bat roosting is reducing and the structure and low disturbance of the heritage buildings are suitable for bats to roost. As conservation of heritage buildings arouse more and more attention in recent years, there are more and more conservation work projects in heritage buildings too. When planning conservation work in a heritage building with the existence of bats, what are the issues to be concerned? Since bats are protected by the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance (Cap.170), it will be an offence if works to be carried out which will hurt bats and destroy their roosts. However, sometimes conservationists seem face a difficult choice in keeping the bats or carry out the conservation work. The work may impose adverse impacts to bats such as destroying their roost and disturbing them. But keeping the btas in the heritage buildings without the conservation work, the building may become dilapidated or even collapse. As there is no comprehensive bat mitigation guideline for conservation work for heritage buildings in Hong Kong. Although there are some guidelines available in Europe and USA, are they applicable in Hong Kong? The aim of this dissertation is to provide a preliminary guide for building professionals/ conservationists to handle the bat issue when planning conservation work to heritage buildings with bat existence. The facts of bats in Hong Kong is studied then followed by the examination of mitigation measures proposed by Natural England with assessments and adjustments to fit the use in Hong Kong. Two local cases are studied and evaluation of the bat mitigation has been carried out. Finally, some points to note when carrying out conservation work in heritage buildings in Hong Kong have been discussed. / published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

No description available.

Public health professionals strive to understand how viruses are distributed in the environment, the factors that facilitate viral transmission, and the diversity of viral agents capable of infecting humans to characterize disease burdens and design effective disease intervention strategies. The public health discipline of conservation medicine supports this endeavor by encouraging researchers to identify previously unknown etiologic agents in wildlife and analyze the ecologic of basis of disease. Within this framework, this research reports the first examination of the prevalence in Southeast Asia of the orthoreovirus Nelson Bay virus in humans and in the Pteropus bat reservoir of the virus. Contact with Pteropus species bats places humans at risk for Nipah virus transmission, an important emerging infectious disease. This research furthermore explores the environmental determinants of Nelson Bay and Nipah viral prevalence in Pteropus bats and reports the characterization of two novel orthoreoviruses isolated from bat tissues collected in Bangladesh.

Anthropogenic disturbance from urbanization has introduced a range of contaminants into freshwater ecosystems. Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW) in particular, deposit effluent with high metal concentrations directly into rivers. These pollutants may affect river biota directly or through modifications to habitat and prey. Therefore, the impact of metal pollution through a food chain should be evident in high trophic level predators such as Neoromicia nana. N. nana is a small, insect-eating bat that occurs in forest and riparian habitats in Africa. Most importantly, it is an urban exploiter, i.e. a species that takes advantage of anthropogenic food and habitat resources. I investigated the foraging behaviour and metal content of N. nana at wastewater-polluted sites (WWTW sludge tanks and sites downstream of wastewater discharge into the rivers) and unpolluted sites (sites upstream of wastewater discharge) at three urban rivers in Durban, South Africa, during winter and summer. To assess water quality, I determined cadmium, copper, chromium, iron, nickel, zinc and lead concentrations using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES). To investigate the foraging behaviour of N. nana, I quantified relative N. nana abundance, and feeding activity from recorded echolocation calls. Using ICP-OES, I quantified metal concentrations in three tissues (liver, kidney and muscle). My results show that concentrations of most metals were generally lowest upstream, intermediate at downstream sites and highest at the tanks. The relative abundance and feeding activity of N. nana were significantly higher at wastewater-polluted sites than at upstream sites, despite there being significantly more insect orders upstream. However, pollution-tolerant Chironomidae (Diptera), were significantly more abundant at wastewater-polluted sites. Indeed, at wastewater-polluted sites, Diptera represented the highest percentage of insects in the diet of N. nana. Essential metals (copper, zinc and iron) were detected in all tissue samples of N. nana. In contrast, the toxic metals cadmium, chromium and nickel were present in tissue of bats only at wastewater-polluted sites (except one upstream occurrence of cadmium). This suggests that these metals may accumulate in tissue through the ingestion of pollutant-exposed prey. Thus, metal pollution from WWTWs affects not only water quality of rivers, but also the diversity of resident aquatic insects and ultimately the ecology of N. nana populations, which may pose serious long-term health risks for these top predators. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2011.

Bats are ecologically important around the world, partially because they eat insects. They are globally threatened by human activities. The extent of bat populations in South Asia has not been as well-monitored or researched as other parts of the world. Determining the size of a large colonial bat population is difficult, and can be aided through video footage or photographs. This study aimed to determine the population size of Tadarida plicata that inhabit the Gomantong Cave system in Borneo. Images of an evening emergence were used to determine the speed of flight, and then the number of bats to emerge from the cave through particle analysis in ImageJ. The counts, subsequent extrapolation, and comparison to previous estimates of flight speed indicated a population size approximately half the size of previous estimates, emphasizing the importance of continued monitoring. Using ImageJ particle analysis was deemed to be an effective way of estimating the number of bats in large populations.

Nowadays great attention is payed to the protection of the biodiversity not only in the EU but also in the whole world. The wane of the biodiversity was influenced by the intensive use of the natural resources and the decimation of the natural landscape. This process has become very fast and often irreversible. According to the protection of the biodiversity, the five international conventions have been signed: Ramsar Convention, Rio de Janeiro Convention, Washington Convention, Bonn Convention, Bern Convention. Lithuania has ratified all of them. Now Lithuania has a very important task to fulfil all the obligations and requirements. The most important obligation is to establish the Natura 2000 territories network. Though the requirements of the directives have been started implementing since 1999, the process still continues. The SPAs status has already been given to 77 localities and 299 are the SAC potentials. There are 12 territories that are intended for the bat protection in the SAC potentials register. Great concern has been showed to the protection of these animals in Europe. On purpose to give it a better protection 31 European countries have ratified the Agreement on the Conservation of Population of European Bats (EUROBATS). Lithuania signed it in 2001. The aim of the work is to study how successfully Lithuania deals with the main 8 obligations. The obligations are: the prohibition of the deliberate catching, keeping and killing, the protection of bats converts... [to full text]