Data for: Drivers affecting habitat use in Afrotropical hipposiderid and pteropodid bats

Assessing how bats respond to habitat attributes requires an integrative approach to reliably predict direct community-level effects. We focused on hipposiderid and pteropodid bats because of their diverse resource use patterns, body size ranges, and dispersal abilities. We combined an array of bat species-level characteristics with key rainforest stand characteristics that may covary with habitat use. Twelve stations were sampled in the Lomami and Yangambi landscapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We investigated whether the species-level flight ability of bats and rainforest stand characteristics can affect bat commuting flights and community-level estimates of both species detection and habitat occupancy. We captured bats for 108 trap-nights. Three sampling events (early evening, middle of the night, and early morning) were replicated for each survey night. Hipposiderids showed an early evening flight peak, while flight activity of pteropodids was constant throughout the ni..., The study design tested the status of bats as mobile link organisms that can facilitate within-community variation in species-specific traits such as mobility, home range, and rainforest habitat requirements. This study focused on two bat families, Hipposideridae and Pteropodidae. We used a stratified sampling design to account for bat community composition, including replication of sites across the Lomami and Yangambi landscapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We selected two sites per landscape. To capture local variation, rainforest stand descriptions and bat surveys were conducted using a nested plot design established along transect segments following slopes. This design was based on a set of six (20 × 5 m) sampling points, hereafter “station”, comparable to a forest stand as a sampling unit. At each sampling point, we recorded forest clutter indicators. We recorded stem density, including lianas with diameter at breast height (dbh) ≥ 5 cm, and basal area of woody stems wi..., Please see the README document and the accompanying published article: Mande C, Van Cakenberghe V, Kirkpatrick L, Laudisoit A, De Bruyn L, Gembu G-C, Verheyen E. Drivers affecting habitat use in Afrotropical hipposiderid and pteropodid bats. Biotropica, Accepted. doi:10.1111/btp.13242