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

Comparison of models used to explain viral richness, ectoparasite and endoparasite species richness in Southeast Asian bats using independent contrasts. The initial model included the following variables: sampling effort (number of hosts sampled for a given virus: hsv); investigating effort (number of publications on parasites for a given host: pubn); host body mass (body mass); colony size (colony); breeding seasons (breeding); geographical distribution range size (range); and shape of the geographical distribution (fragmentation). Models are ranked from the least to the most supported according to corrected Akaike information criteria (AIC). Epstein, 2011) and was well investigated in SEA. In contrast, it seems that several species need more investigation, including H. armiger and all the other species with strongly positive residual values. This prioritization method highlights the over-investigation of some bat species of the family Pteropodidae such as C. sphinx, Pteropus hypomelanus, Pteropus vampyrus, Ptenochirus jagori, Balionycteris maculata, whereas others need more sampling efforts for parasites (e.g., P. lucasi, C. brachyotis, Eonycteris spelaea).