Abstract

CARVAJAL-NIETO, Pamela et al. Bat-flower interactions in Tropical Dry Forest of Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Biota colombiana [online]. 2023, vol.24, n.1, e1079.  Epub Jan 23, 2023. ISSN 0124-5376.  https://doi.org/10.21068/2539200x.1079.

The Tropical Dry Forest (TDF) of Valle del Cauca is subject to strong pressures, however, it is an ecosystem in which important processes are generated for the biological diversity conservation, maintenance of structure and function of ecosystems, food production and economy, such as pollination. Among the pollinators, bats stand out, whose relationships have been little studied in this context, therefore, we sought to identify the interactions between plants and bats with high nectar consumption in ten remnants of TDF in the department. For this, nectarivorous-polynivorous bats were captured and pollen loads were taken in fur and feces. Six species of bats and 77 plant species were found interacting, which formed a network of modular topology, with two animal species of generalistsrepresenting almost 80 % of the interactions. The modeling of network robustness to species loss (secondary extinctions) indicated that it was robust to the loss of specialist species, but showed fragility to the elimination of generalist nodes, mainly for bats. It is necessary to implement conservation strategies for TDF that consider species of pollinating bats and native plants that contribute to the maintenance of the ecosystem and derived ecosystem services.

Keywords : Nesting; Modularity; Robustness; Pollen; Chiroptera; Ecological networks; Ecosystem services..

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