ORIGINAL PAPER Bat diversity in the lowland forests of the Heart of Borneo Matthew J. Struebig • Monika Bo _ zek • Jan Hildebrand • Stephen J. Rossiter • David J. W. Lane Received: 8 June 2012 / Accepted: 18 October 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012 Abstract Borneo’s rainforests are renowned for their high levels of biodiversity, yet information on the distribution and structure of this diversity is lacking, particularly for less charismatic taxonomic groups. We quantified bat diversity across ten sites within a con- tiguous tract of largely undisturbed rainforest in the Heart of Borneo (HoB) transboundary conservation area. Using comparative analyses of 1,362 bat captures from six sites in Brunei Darussalam, together with data from four additional sites in neighbouring territo- ries, we show that the main differences in bat assemblage composition between sites were driven by the abundances of a few cave-roosting species. Beta diversity (distance decay) was notably low and non-significant. Bat assemblage structure in these undisturbed pal- aeotropical forests is therefore relatively homogenous in the absence of environmental gradients. By adding 15 bat species to the Brunei national inventory, we confirm the area of north Borneo to be species-diverse and therefore a priority for conservation efforts. However, we also highlight that coastal forest to be included in a recent extension to the HoB hosts bat assemblages with the fewest species and lowest densities. We maintain that extending the HoB in Brunei to include a more diverse portfolio of habitat types is still Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10531-012-0393-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. J. Struebig (&) School of Anthropology and Conservation, Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NR, UK e-mail: m.j.struebig@kent.ac.uk; m.struebig@qmul.ac.uk M. J. Struebig Á J. Hildebrand Á S. J. Rossiter School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK M. Bo _ zek Genome Centre, John Vane Science Centre, Charterhouse Square, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, UK D. J. W. Lane Department of Biology, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jl. Tungku Link, Gadong BE1410, Brunei Darussalam 123 Biodivers Conserv DOI 10.1007/s10531-012-0393-0