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. 2022 Apr 5;9(1):155.
doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01234-4.

DarkCideS 1.0, a global database for bats in karsts and caves

Krizler C Tanalgo  1   2   3   4 , John Aries G Tabora  5   6 , Hernani Fernandes Magalhães de Oliveira  7 , Danny Haelewaters  8   9   10 , Chad T Beranek  11   12 , Aída Otálora-Ardila  13   14 , Enrico Bernard  14 , Fernando Gonçalves  15   16 , Alan Eriksson  17 , Melissa Donnelly  18 , Joel Monzón González  18   19   20 , Humberto Fernández Ramos  18   20 , Alberto Clark Rivas  18   20 , Paul W Webala  21 , Stanimira Deleva  22   23 , Ridha Dalhoumi  24 , Jaycelle Maula  25 , Dennis Lizarro  26   27 , Luis F Aguirre  27   28 , Nils Bouillard  29 , Ma Niña Regina M Quibod  30   31   32 , Jennifer Barros  14 , Manfredo Alejandro Turcios-Casco  33 , Marcio Martínez  33 , Diego Iván Ordoñez-Mazier  33 , José Alejandro Soler Orellana  33 , Eduardo J Ordoñez-Trejo  33 , Danny Ordoñez  33 , Ada Chornelia  30   31 , Jian Mei Lu  30 , Chen Xing  34 , Sanjeev Baniya  35 , Renata L Muylaert  36 , Leonardo Henrique Dias-Silva  37 , Nittaya Ruadreo  38 , Alice Catherine Hughes  39   40   41
Affiliations

DarkCideS 1.0, a global database for bats in karsts and caves

Krizler C Tanalgo et al. Sci Data. .

Abstract

Understanding biodiversity patterns as well as drivers of population declines, and range losses provides crucial baselines for monitoring and conservation. However, the information needed to evaluate such trends remains unstandardised and sparsely available for many taxonomic groups and habitats, including the cave-dwelling bats and cave ecosystems. We developed the DarkCideS 1.0 ( https://darkcides.org/ ), a global database of bat caves and species synthesised from publicly available information and datasets. The DarkCideS 1.0 is by far the largest database for cave-dwelling bats, which contains information for geographical location, ecological status, species traits, and parasites and hyperparasites for 679 bat species are known to occur in caves or use caves in part of their life histories. The database currently contains 6746 georeferenced occurrences for 402 cave-dwelling bat species from 2002 cave sites in 46 countries and 12 terrestrial biomes. The database has been developed to be collaborative and open-access, allowing continuous data-sharing among the community of bat researchers and conservation biologists to advance bat research and comparative monitoring and prioritisation for conservation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
A schematic diagram showing the features, contents, and potential applications of the DarkCideS 1.0 database. The database is a centralised, collaborative, and open-access platform that contains information on cave-dwelling bat species and their distribution.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Percentage of species data completeness according to biogeographical realm (a) and family-level (b) between IUCN estimates (red bars) and sampled caves from DarkCideS 1.0 (black bars) species richness, the proportion of endemism, and proportion of threatened species worldwide.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
The geographical data turnover of the current database version: (a) geographical locations of all bat caves included in the database, (b) percent distribution of species occurrence in terms of the biogeographical realm and terrestrial biome, (c) country-level turnover.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Biogeographical comparison (mean, 95% CI) of landscape parameters at 1-km resolution.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Schematic diagram showing the updating workflow of the database from new data entry. The DarkCideS database aims to be a long-term biodiversity data exchange platform by including new data from fieldwork and assessments. Authors can upload their dataset containing species records, geographical information, and landscape threats on the web page. The corresponding authors will receive new data entries for validation before being merged into the database.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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