Ekologi, relung pakan, dan strategi adaptasi kelelawar penghuni gua di karst gombong Kebumen Jawa Tengah

Abstract

The existence of cave dwelling bats of karst area need to be conserved, because bats have important roles for the ecosystem inside the cave as well as outside the cave. The objectives of this research were to know the biodiversity of cave dwelling bats, to identify physical factors which influenced the preference roosting place, to determine the prey preference of cave dwelling bats, to observe structural and physiological adaptation of the cave dwelling bats and to propose the karst management strategy based on the conservation status of bats. This study was conducted from September 2008 to July 2010 in twelve caves in Gombong karst area, Central Java. The sample of the bats were picked up at the roosting place during the day. The physical and microclimate parameters were measured under the bat roosts, three times in February, June and October 2009. Stomach gut content was collected and dissolved in aquadest. The material of insect were sorted and identified under microscope and compare to the insects that were collected by light trap in bat foraging area. The polen were collected from the intestine of fruit bats. Blood was taken from the interfemoral vein of bats. Lungs removed from body and were made preparations for histology. The diameter of alveoli was observed under the microscope. Then the amount of erythrocyte was counted by using hemocytometer and hemoglobin content was measured using Sahli’s method. The data was analyzed by ANOVA, Principle Component Analysis (PCA), Redundancy Analysis (RDA), Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA), Hybrid Canonical Correspondence Analysis (HCCA) and multiple regression. The result showed: 1) Fifteen spesies (eleven spesies of Microchiroptera and four spesies of Megachiroptera) indicated known in this research. 2) The microclimate factors which influenced the preference roosting place were the sound intensity, the distance from the cave mouth, the temperature, the humidity and the light intensity. The insects in gut content of insectivorous bats belong to 10 orders, distributed into 29 families. Otherwise pollen in gut content of frugivorous bats belong to 9 families, distributed into 33 spesies of plant. The niche overlap index between spesies of bats that occupy in one cave was less than 30%. The diameter of alveoli significantly correlated with humidity, temperature and ammonia levels. The amount of erythrocyte increased by the increase of humidity, decrease in the temperature and the increase of ammonia level. This tendency also revealed in hemoglobin change. Gombong karst area proposed as a karst region class I based on Kepmen ESDM No. 1456 K/20/MEM/2000