Cave dependency limits climate-driven range shifts in African cave-roosting bats

Abstract

Climate and land-use change threaten the persistence of Africa's cave-roosting bats, yet their future distributions remain poorly understood. We present the first continental-scale assessment of climate-driven range shifts for cave-dwelling bats in sub-Saharan Africa, using Miniopteridae as an obligate cave-dependent model taxon, by integrating species distribution models with a validated karst-based roost suitability layer and a landscape-stability index reflecting projected land-cover vulnerability. Using 551 curated occurrence records, MaxEnt models under six CMIP6 climate scenarios projected substantial range contractions of 36%–64% by 2061–2080, with future suitability restricted mainly to southern Africa, the eastern highlands, and Madagascar. Geological constraints further limited persistence: only ~5% of roost-suitable karst overlapped with future climatically suitable areas, and this overlap decreased to ~2% after weighting for land-cover vulnerability. Similarity metrics revealed extremely low spatial congruence between roost availability and stable climatic refugia. Migration ecology suggests that fragmentation of seasonal roost networks may further hinder persistence by disrupting movement corridors and increasing energetic costs. Collectively, these results show that long-term persistence of cave-dwelling species like Miniopteridae will depend on conserving climate–karst refugia and maintaining connectivity between seasonal roosts.