The condition of surface ecosystems and the extent of threats are significant determinants of cave-dwelling bat diversity. Yet, standardising the vulnerability of caves and underground ecosystems from threats on a global scale is challenging. To address this, the surface ecosystem was mapped as a proxy to assay cave vulnerability to threats using remotely-sensed landscape features. The third dataset included in the database contains the measured land-use and landscape features of the cave surroundings using the georeferenced data from the second dataset (Table 3, Figure 4). The selected landscape features measurements of the 2002 cave sites were selected based on Tanalgo et al.17. We included the estimated distance and measures of twelve (N = 12) landscape variables in the database including canopy cover height29, tree density30, distance to bodies of water31 bare ground cover change32, short vegetation cover change32, tall tree cover change32; for vulnerabilities we included distance to urban areas32, distance to roads33, mine density34, night light35, relative pesticide exposure36, and population density37,38. For distance variables, the “distance to feature” tool was used in ArcMap 10.3 and distances were mapped at a 1-km resolution.
Cave bat parasites and hyperparasites (Dataset 4).