Bat caves are very special roosts that harbour thousands of bats of one or more species. Such sites may hold an incredible “dark fungal diversity” which is still underestimated. We explored the culturable fungal richness in the air, on bats, and in the guano in a bat cave in Brazil’s Caatinga dry forest. Fungal abundance was 683 colony-forming units (CFU) in the guano, 673 CFU in the air, and 105 CFU on the bats. Based on morphological and phylogenetic analysis of ITS, LSU, and TUB2 sequences, fungal isolates of 59 taxa belonging to 37 genera in the phyla Ascomycota (28 genera, including Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium, and Talaromyces), Basidiomycota (eight genera, including Rhodotorula and Schizophyllum), and Mucoromycota (only Rhizopus) were identified. The fungal richness in the air was 23 taxa (especially Aspergillus taxa), mainly found at 15 m and 45 m from the cave entrance; on the bodies of bats it was 36 taxa (mainly Aspergillus taxa), especially on their wing membranes (21 taxa, nine of which were exclusively found in this microhabitat); and in guano 10 fungal taxa (especially Aspergillus and Penicillium) were found. The fungal richness associated with guano (fresh and non-fresh) was similar from bats with different eating habits (insectivorous, frugivorous, and haematophagous). Sampling effort was not sufficient to reveal the total fungal taxa richness estimated. Eight (21.6%) of the 37 genera and 17 (53.1%) of the 32 identified fungal species are reported for the first time in caves. Our results highlight bat caves in Brazil as hotspots of fungal diversity, emphasizing the need to protect such special roosts.

Mammalian carnivores are considered a key group in maintaining ecological health and can indicate potential ecological integrity in landscapes where they occur. Carnivores also hold high conservation value and their habitat requirements can guide management and conservation plans. The order Carnivora has 84 species from 8 families in the Neotropical region: Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Otariidae; Phocidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae. Herein, we include published and unpublished data on native terrestrial Neotropical carnivores (Canidae; Felidae; Mephitidae; Mustelidae; Procyonidae; and Ursidae). NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES is a publicly available data set that includes 99,605 data entries from 35,511 unique georeferenced coordinates. Detection/non‐detection and quantitative data were obtained from 1818 to 2018 by researchers, governmental agencies, non‐governmental organizations, and private consultants. Data were collected using several methods including camera trapping, museum collections, roadkill, line transect, and opportunistic records. Literature (peer‐reviewed and grey literature) from Portuguese, Spanish and English were incorporated in this compilation. Most of the data set consists of detection data entries (n = 79,343; 79.7%) but also includes non‐detection data (n = 20,262; 20.3%). Of those, 43.3% also include count data (n = 43,151). The information available in NEOTROPICAL CARNIVORES will contribute to macroecological, ecological, and conservation questions in multiple spatio‐temporal perspectives. As carnivores play key roles in trophic interactions, a better understanding of their distribution and habitat requirements are essential to establish conservation management plans and safeguard the future ecological health of Neotropical ecosystems. Our data paper, combined with other large‐scale data sets, has great potential to clarify species distribution and related ecological processes within the Neotropics. There are no copyright restrictions and no restriction for using data from this data paper, as long as the data paper is cited as the source of the information used. We also request that users inform us of how they intend to use the data.

Measures of traits are the basis of functional biological diversity. Numerous works consider mean species‐level measures of traits while ignoring individual variance within species. However, there is a large amount of variation within species and it is increasingly apparent that it is important to consider trait variation not only between species, but also within species. Mammals are an interesting group for investigating trait‐based approaches because they play diverse and important ecological functions (e.g., pollination, seed dispersal, predation, grazing) that are correlated with functional traits. Here we compile a data set comprising morphological and life history information of 279 mammal species from 39,850 individuals of 388 populations ranging from −5.83 to −29.75 decimal degrees of latitude and −34.82 to −56.73 decimal degrees of longitude in the Atlantic forest of South America. We present trait information from 16,840 individuals of 181 species of non‐volant mammals (Rodentia, Didelphimorphia, Carnivora, Primates, Cingulata, Artiodactyla, Pilosa, Lagomorpha, Perissodactyla) and from 23,010 individuals of 98 species of volant mammals (Chiroptera). The traits reported include body mass, age, sex, reproductive stage, as well as the geographic coordinates of sampling for all taxa. Moreover, we gathered information on forearm length for bats and body length and tail length for rodents and marsupials. No copyright restrictions are associated with the use of this data set. Please cite this data paper when the data are used in publications. We also request that researchers and teachers inform us of how they are using the data.

Streblidae and Nycteribiidae are families of bloodsucking flies that parasitize bats exclusively. We studied the community of these flies in a Cerrado area in the Central-West Brazil. We captured 708 bats over 17 nights from October 2012 to March 2013. Forty-five per cent of the hosts were parasitized by 836 specimens of bat flies of 22 species. The most abundant flies were Trichobius joblingi on Carollia perspicillata, followed by Megistopoda aranea on Artibeus planirostris, and Strebla guajiro on C. perspicillata. All bat flies showed a high level of specificity for their hosts. Trichobius joblingi was the bat fly with the highest prevalence (80%) and mean intensity of infestation (3.5) on hosts with a representative sample size (n > 20). This result is likely related to the type of roosting (cavity) used by C. perspicillata, primary host of this fly species. Anoura caudifer hosted the largest infracommunities (n = 7). However, most bats were parasitized by a single fly species, suggesting a pattern in infestations. The aggregation index was high, indicating an unequal occurrence in parasite infestations. The majority of hosts were infested by few or no flies and few hosts were highly infested, showing a negative binomial distribution.

Caves are very important roosts for bats. Neotropical countries, like Brazil, harbor both high bat species richness and abundance of underground cavities. The Caatinga drylands in northeastern Brazil are a good example with potentially 100 bat species and a high number of caves. Among those caves, some harbor exceptionally large bat populations, but, even thus, they still remain poorly known and studied. Here we present a 48-months monitoring based on a non-invasive thermal detection system to estimate the abundance changes of a large colony in a bat cave in the Caatinga drylands of Brazil. That cave harbors ten bat species — two nationally endangered — and 70% of them are main cave users. We found a marked inter-month fluctuation in the total bat abundance, with no consistent pattern. Total bat abundance was neither related to precipitation nor to the reproductive seasonality. During certain moments, the bat population can reach up to 120,000 individuals, making this cave a priority site for bat conservation in Brazil.