The importance of Indigenous Territories for conserving bat diversity across the Amazon biome

Abstract

• Indigenous lands can play a role in safeguarding bat diversity across the Amazon. • Indigenous Territories harbour high numbers of threatened and data deficient species. • Partnerships with Indigenous communities can improve bat knowledge and conservation. Indigenous Peoples have shaped and managed vast tracts of the Amazon rainforest for millennia. However, evaluations of how much biodiversity is governed under Indigenous stewardship are scarce. Here, we integrate geospatial data of officially recognized ITs across the Amazon biogeographic boundaries with the distribution range of >200 Amazonian bat species, to: (i) assess the potential contribution of ITs for the conservation of this species-rich mammalian group across the Amazon; (ii) investigate which ITs host the greatest number of bat species; and (iii) analyse how threatened and Data Deficient bat species are distributed within the ITs of the nine Amazonian countries. Twenty-two bat species were found to have >25% of their global distribution range within Amazonian ITs, including many forest-dependent species with restricted distribution ranges and a highly threatened or Data Deficient conservation status. Some particularly diverse ITs were found to harbour over half of the known Amazonian bat species, particularly in transboundary areas in the North-western Amazon. At the national level, the highest number of species with over 25% of their national Amazonian distribution within ITs was found in Peru (145), followed by Brazil (136), Colombia and Ecuador (both with 134). This study reveals the potential role of Indigenous Peoples in Amazonian bat conservation and emphasizes the contribution of their stewardship for maintaining the ecosystems in which some of the most rare and unique bat species are found.