Distribution and abundance of different bat species in the interior of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and adjacent farmlands in Gede, Kilifi County, Kenya

Latest version published by National Museums of Kenya on May 2, 2018 National Museums of Kenya

We present data on the distribution and abundance of different bat species in the interior of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (ASF) and human-modified habitats (farmlands) on the eastern part of this coastal forest in Gede, Kilifi County Kenya. Bats were sampled with ground level mist nets and opportunistically with hand nets from caves. Captured individuals were identified to species and count of each species recorded both in the forest interior and the farmland. This information provides a baseline information on the role of human-modified habitats, and remaining coastal forests in Kenya for conservation of bats. In addition, the informaion can be used for future detailed study on ecology of bats as well monitoring of population trends.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 5,413 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

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Data as a DwC-A file download 5,413 records in English (95 KB) - Update frequency: unknown
Metadata as an EML file download in English (15 KB)
Metadata as an RTF file download in English (11 KB)

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Musila S, Syingi R, Zuhura A, Gichuki N (2017): Distribution and abundance of different bat species in the interior of Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and adjacent farmlands in Gede, Kilifi County, Kenya. v1.2. National Museums of Kenya. Dataset/Occurrence. http://ipt.museums.or.ke/ipt/resource?r=bats_occurence_1&v=1.2

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Museums of Kenya. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC) 4.0 License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: a1857da2-d5b1-48e3-ac40-6a8622f0167d.  National Museums of Kenya publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Kenya.

Keywords

Bats; Arabuko-Sokoke Forest; Coastal Forest; Farmlands; Gede; Observation; Occurrence; Observation

Contacts

Who created the resource:

Simon Musila
Head of Section, Mammalogy
National Museums of Kenya Box 40658 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE
http://www.museums.or.ke
Robert Syingi
Intern, Mammalogy Section
National Museums of Kenya Box 40658 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE
Aziza Zuhura
Technician, Mammalogy Section
National Museums of Kenya Box 40658 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE
http://www.museums.or.ke
Nathan Gichuki
Professor, School of biological Sciences
University of Nairobi - Chiromo P. O. Box 30197 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE

Who can answer questions about the resource:

Simon Musila
Head of Section, Mammalogy
National Museums of Kenya Box 40658 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE
http://www.museums.or.ke

Who filled in the metadata:

Simon Musila
Head of Section, Mammalogy
National Museums of Kenya Box 40658 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE
http://www.museums.or.ke

Who else was associated with the resource:

Processor
Esther Mwangi
Research Scientist
National Museums of Kenya Box 40658 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE
http://www.museums.or.ke
Processor
Lawrence Monda
ICT Manager
National Museums of Kenya Box 40658 00100 Nairobi Nairobi KE
http://www.museums.or.ke

Geographic Coverage

Latitude of 3° 20’ S, Longitude 39° 50’ E Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (ASF) and adjacent farmlands around Gede (especially Mtsangoni, Mida, Arabuko, Gede, Watamu and Msabaha villages), Kenya

Bounding Coordinates South West [-3.509, 39.798], North East [-3.197, 40.008]

Taxonomic Coverage

All bat individuals captured were identified to species level.

Family  Emballonuridae,  Hipposideridae,  Megadermatidae,  Miniopteridae,  Molossidae,  Nycteridae,  Pteropodidae,  Rhinolophidae,  Rhinonycteridae,  Vespertilionidae

Temporal Coverage

Start Date / End Date 2014-01-01 / 2016-01-01

Project Data

The project is an endeavour to document bats diversity in different habitat types in Kenya

Title Factors influencing bat community structure and temporal activity patterns in Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and adjacent human-modified habitats, Gede-Malindi, Kenya
Identifier BID-AF2017-0274-NAC
Funding The project was funded by British Ecological Society (Ecologists in Africa (http://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/funding/ecologists-in-africa/) grant Number 4632-5670) and Kunming Institute of Zoology (http://english.kiz.cas.cn/). Bat Conservation International also provided 30 mist nets used in the survey. National Museums of Kenya allowed Simon Musila to undertake the project. We appreciate the guidance provided by Simon Kajengo as we worked at night in Gede villages and assistance in data collection by Aaron Musyoka.
Study Area Description This study was undertaken in the interior of the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest (ASF) and adjacent farmlands on the eastern part of this forest. The forest is found in Gede, Malindi-Kenya, about 100 km north of Mombasa city at a latitude of 3° 20’ S and longitude 39° 50’ E. The ASF is the largest continuous coastal forest in eastern Africa, which consists of three rather distinct types of broadleaved forest (“mixed forest”, “Brachystegia forest” and “Cynometra forest”), and mostly human settlements and cultivated land around the forest, consisting of small farms here referred to as ‘farmlands’ with fruit trees (mostly mango Mangifera indica, cashew Anacardium occidentale, and coconut Cocos nucifera.
Design Description Bats were sampled using equal number of ground-level mist-nets (12m long by 2.5m wide, 16-mm mesh, four shelves, Ecotone, Poland) both in the forest interior and farmlands in each survey. To compile a comprehensive bats of the study areas we opportunistically surveyed bats directly from the caves with hand nets. A total of eight surveys were undertaken in the study area; March 2014 (pilot survey) and the rest actual surveys (November 2014 (short-rain season), February 2015 (dry season), June 2015 (long rain season), November 2015 (short rain season), February 2016 (dry season), June 2016 (long rain season) and November 2016 (long-rain season) corresponding to different seasons. Each sampling station was mist-netted once in a single night in each survey season. In each survey, the forest interior and the farmlands were sampled alternately for bats. Captured bats were kept singly in large cotton bags and released at each sampling site, after we recorded time of capture, species, sex, age, reproductive condition, body mass, and length of forearm. Vouchers were also collected for all species, preserved in 70% ethanol, and deposited with the Mammalogy Section of the National Museums of Kenya (NMK). Bats were identified using vouchers at Mammalogy Section lab NMK, as well as published manuals by Monadjem et al. 2010; Patterson and Webala, 2012 and Mammals of Africa Vol. 4 (Happold and Happold, 2013). Our field protocol followed guidelines recommended by the American Society of Mammalogists (Sikes and Gannon 2011). Data was aligned to the Darwin Core standards before publishing on Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) through the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) at National Museums of Kenya.

The personnel involved in the project:

Principal Investigator
Simon Musila

Additional Metadata

Alternative Identifiers a1857da2-d5b1-48e3-ac40-6a8622f0167d
http://ipt.museums.or.ke/ipt/resource?r=bats_occurence_1