It is difficult to compare the results of bats inventories since sampling methodologies differ largely influencing the results. The objective of this study is to present three inventories of bats accomplished in similar environments in the Southeastern Brazil and to compare the different effort applied to check the bat species richness. Three methodologies were compared: I) sampling with mist nets all night, II) sampling with mist nets for six hours every night, and III) sampling with mist nets opened all night by one or two nights in each place, combined with the active search for refuges. We compared the methodologies using three different units: sampling nights, hours of effort, and number of captures. Species accumulation curves demonstrated that the addition of new species is more accelerated when the effort is of 12 h per night together with active searching refuges. The expected number of species given by the Chao estimator varied from 25.5 to 38 species, corresponding to 3.12 to nine species increase for each inventory. The total bat species sampled by the three methodologies reached 92% of the species recognized to occur in the south portion of Rio de Janeiro state and each inventory varied from 53.9 to 74.4% of the regional richness.
Atlantic Forest; Chiroptera; inventories; methods
