654 P. J. Oelbaum et al.
disturbance from guano harvesters and predation by feral cats (J. Flanders, pers. comm., 2023; M.B. Fenton & D.L. Whyte, unpubl. data, 2019). However, it is unclear why we did not record the species at previously known roosts such as St. Clair Cave; we do not know whether this is a result of abiotic factors, such as changes in cave microclimate, or disturbance by people or feral cats. Monitoring of known roosts is required to ensure the sur- vival of this Critically Endangered species, as is improving protection and establishing protected areas around known roosts to reduce disturbance, as Bat Conservation International has done at Stony Hill Cave (Meierhofer et al., 2023). Further surveys of Rock Spring Caverns are re- quired to identify chambers of importance for P. aphylla, and deployment of temperature loggers to identify micro- climates favourable to roosting within this cave system. We encourage the Urban Development Corporation and National Environment and Planning Agency to create a bat monitoring programme for the Bat College population. Our future work at Rock Spring Cave will focus on moni- toring bats at other exits (we only trapped at one of the 11 known entrances) to refine the estimate of population size, and identify areas of ecological importance near the cave to inform management decisions. We feel these new records provide hope for the future of this Critically En- dangered endemic species.
Author contributions Study design: PJO, RPH, ERD, KCW; bat fieldwork: PJO, RPH, DLW, RSS; cave fieldwork: RSS, JP, SK; figures: RSS, DLW; writing: all authors.
Acknowledgements We thank the National Environment and Planning Agency, in particular Samantha Grant, Andrea Donaldson and Peter Knight, for granting permission; Brock Fenton, Susan Koenig of Windsor Research Centre, and Jon Flanders of Bat Conservation International for assistance in planning; the Urban Development Corporation and their team, and landowners and com- munities near Rock Spring Caverns, for access to the caves; and Nancy Simmons, Hugh Broders and Caleb Ryan for the harp traps that made this work possible. Funding was provided by the University of California, Merced (Start-up fund to ERD) and National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery Grant to KCW).
Conflicts of interest None.
Ethical standards All research was conducted under permits granted by the National Environment and Planning Agency, and work at Green Grotto was conducted under an indemnity agreement granted by the Urban Development Corporation. All capture and handling followed the guidelines of the American Society of Mammalogists (Sikes et al., 2011) and under institutional animal use approval (UTSC AUP #20012113; UC Merced IACUC D16-00791, A4561-1), and this research otherwise abided by the Oryx guidelines on ethical standards.
Data availability All capture records published here include per- tinent data. As a permit condition, coordinates of our netting sites are not permitted to be published but can be obtained by contacting the authors and/or the Jamaican Caves Organisation. No additional data collected are relevant to this publication.
References
DONAHUE, M.Z. (2019) Back from the brink: safeguarding the last refuge of the Jamaican flower bat. Bats, 14, 14–16.
FENTON, M.B., FENTON, S.L., KOENIG,S.&WHYTE, D.L. (2020) Bats Using the Lake-Side Bat Exit, Green Grotto Cave, St. Ann Parish, Jamaica. Unpublished report. University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada.
FINCHAM, A.G. (1997) Jamaica Underground: The Caves, Sinkholes and Underground Rivers of the Island. The Press University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica.
GENOWAYS, H.H., BAKER, R.J., BICKHAM, J.W.&PHILLIPS, C.J. (2005) Bats of Jamaica. Special Publications of the Museum of Texas Tech University, 48, 1–155.
GOODWIN, R.E. (1970) The ecology of Jamaican bats. Journal of Mammalogy, 51, 571–579.
KOENIG,S.(2018) The Unique Soundscape of Green Grotto: Diversity and Spatial Distributions of Cave- and Forest-Dependent Bats in a Complex Network of Caves (With Additional Notes on Invertebrate Fauna). Unpublished
report.Windsor Research Centre, Sherwood Content, Jamaica.
KOENIG,S.&DÁVALOS,L.(2015) Phyllonycteris
aphylla.In The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015.
dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK. 2015-4.RLTS.T17173A22133396.en.
KOOPMAN, K.F.&WILLIAMS, E.E. (1951) Fossil Chiroptera collected by H. E. Anthony in Jamaica, 1919–1920. American Museum Novitates, 1519, 1–29.
KURTA,A.&RODRÍGUEZ-DURÁN,A. (2023) Bats of theWest Indies: A NaturalHistory and
FieldGuide.Cornell University Press, Ithaca,USA.
LADLE, R.J., FIRMINO, J.V.L., MALHADO, A.C.M. & RODRÍGUEZ- DURÁN,A. (2012) Unexplored diversity and conservation potential of Neotropical hot caves. Conservation Biology, 26, 978–982.
MCFARLANE, D.A. (1986) Cave bats in Jamaica. Oryx, 20, 27–30. MEIERHOFER, M.B., JOHNSON, J.S., PEREZ-JIMENEZ, J., ITO,F., WEBELA, P.A.,WIANTORO, S. et al. (2023) Effective conservation of subterranean-roosting bats. Conservation Biology,e14157, published online 28 July 2023.
MILLER, G.S. (1898) Descriptions of Five New Phyllostome Bats. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 50, 334–337.
NOWAK, R.M. (1999)Walker’s Mammals of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
PREGILL, G.K., CROMBIE, R.I., STEADMAN, D.W., GORDON, L.K., DAVIS,F.W.&HILGARTNER,W.B. (1991) Living and late Holocene fossil vertebrates, and the vegetation of the Cockpit Country, Jamaica. Atoll Research Bulletin, 353, 1–19.
RODRÍGUEZ-DURÁN,A.(1995) Metabolic rates and thermal conductance in four species of neotropical bats roosting in hot caves. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A, 110, 347–355.
SIKES, R.S., GANNON,W.L. & THE ANIMAL CARE AND USE COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MAMMALOGISTS (2011) Guidelines of the American Society of Mammalogists for the use of wildmammalsin research. Journal ofMammalogy, 92, 235–253.
Oryx, 2024, 58(5), 650–654 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605323001643
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140
