79 © British Cave Research Association 2019 ISSN 1356-191X Cave and Karst Science, Vol.46, No.2, (2019) 79–86 Transactions of the British Cave Research Association Bats of Tadovan Cave in southern Iran: their occurrence in the cave, and conservation issues Vahid AKMALI *1 , Saeeid SHAHABI 2 and Maja ZAGMAJSTER 3 1 Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Razi University, 6714967346, Kermanshah, Iran. * Corresponding author: v_akmali@razi.ac.ir 2 Research Centre for Health Sciences, Department of Medical Entomology and Vector Control, School of Health, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. 3 SubBioLab, Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Jamnikarjeva 101, Slovenia. Abstract: Caves present a crucial habitat for most bat species in Iran, but data on cave-dwelling bats are relatively scarce. Tadovan Cave in Fars Province is the richest cave in terms of bat species observed, with ten species recorded to date. Data from published sources are listed here, alongside data from the present study, which included three expeditions to the cave in March 2008, December 2013 and October 2015. An overview is presented of the cave chambers used by ten bat species from four different families: Rhinolophus hipposideros, R. blasii, R. euryale, R. mehelyi and R. ferrumequinum (Rhinolophidae); Rhinopoma microphyllum and R. muscatellum (Rhinopomatidae); Myotis blythii and M. capaccinii (Vespertilionidae) and Miniopterus pallidus (Miniopteridae). Microclimatic data of the cave chambers are provided, as well as body measurements of individual bats from the cave. A general decline in numbers of bat individuals is noted for all species, compared to visual counts reported from 1980 and 2012. Conservation issues are discussed and urgent needs are raised both for systematic studies and for development of a detailed conservation plan for this cave. Keywords: Chiroptera, Iranian Plateau, Fars Province, Zagros Range. Received: 26 October 2018; Accepted: 20 April 2019. Background Species richness of bats in Iran is the highest among the countries of the Middle East, with 50 species reported in total (DeBlase, 1980; Benda et al., 2012). About 11% of Iran’s land surface is karstic, with at least an estimated 850 caves distributed across its western, northeastern and central parts (Raeisi, 2004; Vardanjani et al., 2017). Caves vary in their importance for bats; mostly they provide daily roosts or hibernation sites, with special importance as nursery roosts (Benda et al., 2012). Data on bats from caves in Iran are scarce. In an overview of all known bat localities in Iran, provided by Benda et al. (2012), only about 15% of sites refer to caves. Even though they are few in number, the great importance of caves to bats in Iran has been confirmed by some studies. Overviews of the bat fauna have been published recently for some provinces. In Ilam Province 11 bat species were recorded in 23 caves (Fathipour et al., 2016). One of the richest areas in terms of bat diversity is made up of extensive limestone outcrops containing numerous caves along the Zagros Range in western Iran (Raeisi, 2012). High bat diversity was recorded previously by DeBlase (1980), and this has been confirmed by more-recent study (Shahabi et al., 2017). In Fars Province in southwestern Iran, nearly half of all the species known for the country (24) were recorded among 69 different caves (Shahabi et al., 2017). Large numbers of bats may congregate in a small number of caves, and disturbance of the bats in a single large nursery colony can result in the local extinction of such populations (Dietz et al., 2009). Documentation of the use of caves by bats is also necessary to increase knowledge of general species distribution, ecology and population sizes (Bücs et al., 2012). The paucity of information on the presence of bats in caves, coupled with a lack of information on the actual use of caves and their chambers during the year, present serious impediments to evaluation and planning of conservation of bats in Iran. Frequent disturbance by human impact, and/or by changes of cave microclimate can decrease or eliminate a local bat population, with several cases of such disturbance already recorded in western Iran (Sharifi et al., 2000). For this reason, meticulous records of data on cave use, as well as potential threats to individual sites, are of crucial importance to any attempts to propose effective site relevant conservation and management plans. Tadovan Cave in the Zagros Mountains is the richest cave in Fars Province in terms of number of bat species (Shahabi et al., 2017). Ten different bat species have been recorded in the cave to date, but little is known about how many individuals of each species may be present, or how they actually use the cave chambers. All available data describing bats in the cave, from published sources and from first-hand observations in the course of three visits during this study (2008–2015) are reproduced here.