Are we underestimating the threat status of Brazilian bats?

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Current estimates show that most mammals are susceptible to habitat loss. Some authors consider that bats should be particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic land-use changes due to their unique life-history: fast metabolism, low reproductive rates, high longevity, and gregarious behavior in many species. A single event may have long-term consequences, as populations will slowly recover from increased mortality. Considering that the evaluation of a species threat status is the primary step for conservation planning, and that in general we should expect that bats should respond like other mammals due to the massive anthropogenic threats, here we compare bat conservation status with that of the remaining mammals in Brazil, South America and worldwide to evaluate if their perceived level of threat is similar. We also evaluate if knowledge on threatened species in Brazil is balanced among taxa. According to IUCN 21.2% of the world's mammals are globally threatened, while threatened bats represent 14.5% of bats. In South America threatened bats represent just 7%, while in Brazil it goes down to 1% of bats. The number of published papers differs between threatened mammal taxa with five species –from the Carnivora, Cetartiodactyla and Sirenia – corresponding to almost half of the literature. Seeing that Brazil is megadiverse and suffering huge rates of deforestation, our results indicate an unbalanced assessment, with bats (wrongly?) perceived as less threatened than the whole of the other mammals. Finally, considering the lack of robust ecological data on many species we suggest the use of alternative approaches for the redefinition of bat conservation status in Brazil.