Parasite and viral species richness of Southeast Asian bats: Fragmentation of area distribution matters

Gay, Noellie; Olival, Kevin J.; Bumrungsri, Sara; Siriaroonrat, Boripat; Bourgarel, Mathieu; Morand, Serge

A total of 292 species bats inventoried in SEA were included in the database. Several variables were documented for each host species: distribution size; distribution shape (border edge, as a measure of the fragmentation of bat distribution area estimated by the ratio of the distribution circumference to the distribution area size); breeding seasons per year; colony size and average adult body mass (Table 1 ). The distribution shape ranges from 0 (cylindrical and compact distribution area) to 1 (fragmented distribution area) (Fortin et al., 2005) . Information was gathered from several sources: IUCN Red List (http://www.iucnredlist.org/); Wilson and Reeder «Mammal Species of the World» (http://www.bucknell. edu/msw3/); and Harrison Institute (http://www.sc.psu.ac.th/batdb/ index.asp). In addition, published articles were obtained through match searches using Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com) and the Web of Knowledge (http://apps.webofknowledge.com/). Data on parasite species richness (PSR), which is the number of parasite species described infecting a given host species, were obtained through searches on Web of Science. To identify relevant information binomial names of every Southeast Asian bat species were combined with related terms (parasite, ectoparasite, endoparasite, virus, bacteria, fungi, helminths, pathogen and disease). All resulting abstracts and available full texts were examined. We examined 964 publications from 1959 to July 2012 and identified 637 species of parasites in SEA.