Diversidad de murciélagos en cuatro tipos de bosque de la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca, México

Abstract

The Sierra Norte is the region with the highest wildlife species richness in the state of Oaxaca. However, there is very little published information about the mammal fauna in some areas of this region. In this paper, we describe bat communities in four forest types of the municipality of Ixtlán de Juárez: tropical humid forest (THF), tropical dry forest (TDF), pine-oak forest (POF) and mountain cloud forest (MCF). The objective is to compare species richness and diversity of bat communities, as well as species compositional similarity among forest types. We captured 22 bat species; Sturnira hondurensis was the most abundant species in the region. The highest species richness and diversity was recorded in the THF, followed by the TDF and POF, while the bat community of the MCF had the lower number of species. Moreover, given its high richness, the THF was less similar in species composition regarding the other forest types. However, it is still necessary to invest more sampling effort in this region in order to have more complete bat inventories.