Ecological observations on an East African bat community

Thomas J. O'Shea; Terry A. Vaughan

doi:10.1515/mamm.1980.44.4.485

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Ecological observations on an East African bat community

Thomas J. O'Shea·Terry A. Vaughan

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Abstract

The structure and ecology of bat faunas is a subject of interest to mammalogists (Findley, 1976; Wilson, 1973). Syntopic African bat communities, however, have received little study in comparison with neotropical faunas (cf. Fleming et al. , 1972; LaVal and Fitch, 1977; McNab, 1971). Verschuren (1957) presented natural history information and species accounts for a localized central African bat fauna. Foraging related characteristics of a Rhodesian community have also been analyzed (Fenton, 1975; Fenton et al. , 1977), but not on a seasonal basis. Other reports on African bat faunas are restricted to regional summaries (cf. Koopman, 1975 or Rosevear, 1965) and do not consider ecological aspects of a single localized community. The purpose of our study was to follow species composition, reproduction, and foraging related characteristics of an East African bat fauna over a full annual cycle.

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Source-reported bounding extent: -37.5° to 38° latitude; 18.1° to 60.6° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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Thomas J. O'Shea, Terry A. Vaughan. 1980. Ecological observations on an East African bat community. https://doi.org/10.1515/mamm.1980.44.4.485

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