Afrotropical Bats
As recently as 2013, Africa was thought to be home to no more than 225 species of bats. The headt pace of discoveries since then have shown that it may hold twice that number. Working with other African bat scholars at Field Museum, including Terry Demos, Holly Lutz, Dani Rossoni, Julian Kerbis Peterhans, Steve Goodman, and the late Bill Stanley, and occasionally others (especially Ara Monadjem) has allowed us to pool specimens nearly spanning the continent. These permit some of the first continent-wide views of bat diversification using modern genetic and acoustic information.
This project began as "The Bats of Kenya." Straddling the equator in East Africa, Kenya is an economically impoverished but megadiverse country. Many challenges confront its national development, among them a burgeoning human population, drought and climate change, and a too-small cadre of scientists and resource managers. Since 1998, The Field Museum has collaborated with two Kenyan scientific agencies--Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the National Museums of Kenya (NMK)--as well as staff and students at several Kenyan universities, to help solve the nation's scientific challenges.
One of these challenges is the management of Kenya's native bat populations. Bats represent more than one-quarter of Kenya's ca. 400 mammal species. Scientists are only now realizing the important ecological services provided by bats. In addition to maintaining healthy ecosystems through pollination of flowers, seed dispersal, and consuming herbivorous insects, bats are crucial -- if usually overlooked -- partners in modern agriculture. In the US, bats contribute billions of dollars annually to human agriculture by consuming crop-destroying insects.
In August 2011, Kenyan scientist Paul Webala (now a lecturer at Maasai Mara University), WKU professor Carl Dick, and I began what we thought to be a three-year program to survey the bats of Kenya. This work had three immediate purposes: 1) to document the distribution, status, and ecology of Kenya's rich bat faunas, 2) to give KWS insights into managing an important and economically valuable resource, and 3) to create a vouchered call library for bats in Kenya that will enable KWS and research scientists to remotely monitor bats. In the course of this work, we have expanded Dr. Webala's training in systematics and genetics to enhance his proficiency as a mentor; we have also added greatly to his call library. In April and May 2012, Paul and Ruth Keeru -- a technician at National Museums of Kenya -- came to Chicago for advanced training and shortly afterwards, JRS Biodiversity Foundation awarded Paul, me, and Dave Waldien (Bat Conservation International) a $90,000 grant to pursue this project. A page describing the status of that work can be found here.
A recent study estimated that consumption of insects by American bats is worth $3.7 to 50 billion annually in avoided crop losses and/or pesticide applications. Because Kenyan agriculture is largely subsistence-based, its reliance on natural pest control by bats may be even greater. Most bat species known from Kenya are insect-eaters; their abundance, roosts, habits, and diets are unknown. So too are their possible roles as reservoirs or vectors of human disease. Diseases like rabies, Marburg and Ebola are also known from Kenyan bats - this is a growing concern as Kenya's economic development brings people closer to wildlife. Our project is designed to inform science and the public concerning Kenyan natural resources, their roles in a healthy environment, and threats to their persistence.
Project Publications
all were funded by JRS Biodiversity and the Field Museum
Patterson, B.D., & P.W. Webala. 2012. Keys to the bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) of East Africa. Fieldiana: Life and Earth Sciences 6:1-63. pdf (6.7 Mb)
Wechuli, D., P.W. Webala, B.D. Patterson & R. Ochieng. 2017. Bat species diversity and distribution in a disturbed regime at the Lake Bogoria National Reserve, Kenya. African Journal of Ecology 55(4): 465–476. DOI
Patterson, B.D., P.W. Webala, M. Bartonjo, J. Nziza, C.W. Dick & T.C. Demos. 2018. On the taxonomic status and distribution of African species of Otomops (Chiroptera: Molossidae). PeerJ 6: e4864 DOI open access
Demos, T.C., P.W. Webala. M. Bartonjo & B.D. Patterson. 2018. Hidden diversity of African yellow house bats (Vespertilionidae, Scotophilus): insights from multilocus phylogenetics and lineage delimitation. Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution 6:86. DOI
Musila S., A. Monadjem, P.W. Webala, B.D. Patterson, R. Hutterer, Y.A.De Jong, T.M. Butynski, G. Mwangi, Z.-Z. Chen & X.-L. Jiang. 2019. An annotated checklist of mammals of Kenya. Zoological Research 40(1):1-51. URL open access
Patterson, B.D., P.W. Webala, S.M. Goodman, M. Bartonjo & T.C. Demos. 2019. Genetic variation and relationships among Afrotropical species of Myotis (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Journal of Mammalogy 100(4): 1130–1143 . DOI
Webala, P.W., J. Rydell, C.W. Dick, S. Musila & B.D. Patterson. 2019. Echolocation calls of some high duty-cycle bats from Kenya. Journal of Bat Research and Conservation 12(1): 10-20. DOI and open access
Demos, T.C., P.W. Webala, S.M. Goodman, J.C. Kerbis Peterhans, M. Bartonjo & B.D. Patterson. 2019. Molecular phylogenetics of the African horseshoe bats (Chiroptera: Rhinolophidae): expanded geographic and taxonomic sampling of the Afrotropics. BMC Evolutionary Biology 19:166. DOI and open access
Webala, P.W., J. Mwaura, J.M. Mware, G.G. Ndiritu & B.D. Patterson. 2019. The effect of habitat fragmentation on the bats of Kakamega forest, western Kenya. Journal of Tropical Ecology 35(6): 260–269. DOI
Demos, T.C., P.W. Webala, J.C. Kerbis Peterhans, S.M. Goodman, M. Bartonjo & B.D.Patterson. 2019. Molecular phylogenetics of slit-faced bats (Chiroptera: Nycteridae) reveals deeply divergent African lineages. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 57(4): 1019–1038. DOI and open access
Demos, T.C., P.W. Webala, H.L. Lutz, J.C. Kerbis Peterhans, S.M. Goodman, N. Cortés-Delgado, M. Bartonjo & B.D.Patterson. 2020. Molecular phylogenetics, species limits, and historical biogeography of Miniopterus. Zoologica Scripta 49(1): 1-13. DOI and open access
Patterson, B.D., P.W. Webala, T. Lavery, J.C. Kerbis Peterhans, S.M. Goodman, B. R. Agwanda & T.C. Demos. 2020. Evolutionary relationships and population genetics of the Afrotropical leaf-nosed bats (Chiroptera: Hipposideridae). ZooKeys 929: 117-161 DOI and open access.
Rossoni, D.M., T.C. Demos, S.M. Goodman, R.K. Yego, J.L. Molhman, P.W. Webala & B.D. Patterson. 2021. Genetic, morphological and acoustic differentiation of African trident bats (Rhinonycteridae: Triaenops). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 191(1): 236–257. DOI
Monadjem, A., T.C. Demos, D.L. Dalton, P.W. Webala, S. Musila, J.C. Kerbis Peterhans & B.D. Patterson. 2021. A revision of pipistrelle-like bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) in East Africa with the description of new genera and species. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 191(4): 1114–146. DOI
Demos, T.C., S.M. Goodman & B.D. Patterson. 2021. On the status of Nycteris madagascariensis G. Grandidier, 1937, a reputed endemic to Madagascar. Acta Chiropterologica 23(1): 21-32. DOI
Verrett, T., P.W. Webala, B.D. Patterson & C.W. Dick. 2022. Remarkably low host specificity in the bat fly Penicillidia fulvida (Diptera: Nycteribiidae) as assessed by mitochondrial COI and nuclear 28S sequence data. Parasites and Vectors 15: 392. DOI
Patterson, B.D. 2022. Breakthrough in bats. In the Field 93(2): 23. pdf
Sulser, R.B., B.D. Patterson, D.J. Urban, A.I. Neander & Z.-X. Luo. 2022. Inner ear neuroanatomy of bats and its implications for echolocation. Nature 602(7897): 449–454. DOI
Demos, T.C., P.W. Webala, S.M. Goodman, J.C. Kerbis Peterhans, H.L. Lutz, B.R. Agwanda, N. Cortés-Delgado, S. Briones, R.H. Ree & B.D. Patterson. 2023. Ultraconserved elements resolve phylogenetic relationships and biogeographic history of African-Malagasy bent-winged bats (Miniopterus). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. DOI
Dick, C.W., T.B. Verrett, P.W. Webala & B.D. Patterson. 2023. Nycteribiid bat flies (Arthropoda, Insecta, Diptera, Nycteribiidae) of Kenya. ZooKeys 1169:65-85. DOI--open access
Grunwald, A.L., T.C. Demos, Y. Nguéagni, M.N. Tchamba, A. Monadjem, P.W. Webala, J.C. Kerbis Peterhans, B.D. Patterson & L.A. Ruedas. 2023. A review of the genus Pseudoromicia (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae), with the description of a new species. Systematics and Biodiversity 21(1): 2156002. DOI
