Population trends in the vulnerable Grey-headed flying-fox, Pteropus poliocephalus; results from a long-term, range-wide study.

Autor: Vanderduys EP; Environment, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia., Caley P; Data61, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia., McKeown A; Environment, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Adelaide, South Australia, Australia., Martin JM; Wildlife Services, Ecosure, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia., Pavey C; Environment, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia., Westcott D; Environment, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Atherton, Queensland, Australia.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2024 Mar 21; Vol. 19 (3), pp. e0298530. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Mar 21 (Print Publication: 2024).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298530
Abstrakt: Monitoring is necessary for the management of any threatened species if its predicament and status are to improve. Monitoring establishes baseline data for tracking trends in distribution and abundance and is a key tool for informing threatened species management. Across much of the Old World, bats in the genus Pteropus (Pteropodidae, Chiroptera) face significant threats from habitat loss, conflict with humans, and hunting. Despite conflict with humans and their threatened status, few Pteropus are being monitored. Often, this is because of difficulties associated with their high mobility, large and easily disturbed aggregations, and their use of unknown or remote habitat. Here we describe 10 years of results from the National Flying-fox Monitoring Program (NFFMP) for the grey-headed flying-fox, (Pteropus poliocephalus) in Australia. Range-wide quarterly surveys were conducted over a three-day period since November 2012 using standardized methods appropriate to conditions encountered at each roost. For our analysis of the population and its trend, we used a state-space model to account for the ecology of the grey-headed flying-fox and the errors associated with the surveying process. Despite the general perception that the species is in decline, our raw data and the modelled population trend suggest the grey-headed flying-fox population has remained stable during the NFFMP period, with the range also stable. These results indicate that the species' extreme mobility and broad diet bestow it with a high level of resilience to various disturbance events. Long-term, range-wide studies such as this one, are crucial for understanding relatively long-lived and highly nomadic species such as the grey-headed flying-fox. The outcomes of this study highlight the need for such systematic population monitoring of all threatened Pteropus species.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
(Copyright: © 2024 Vanderduys et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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