4. Synthesis
Our review revealed that more than 50% of the bat studies are focused on ‘diversity’ and at least half Philippine bat species are understudied based on effort allocation measures suggesting that knowledge gap in Philippine bat research across batspecies, groups, geographic focus including target habitats are evident. The development of national-level research priorities led by countries’ bat biologists and conservationists could be developed to target knowledge gaps in bat research and conservation, which are adaptable and achievable in a reasonable time (Gardenfor, 2001; Brito et al., 2010; Juslen et al., 2013). At a regional scale (Southeast Asia) priorities have been developed for bat research and conservation (see Kingston 2010) and downscaling these priorities to practicable regional priorities may be ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 14 essential for effective regional protection. Developing regional-scale conservation priorities is essential to efficiently achieve large-scale conservation (e.g., continental-, global-scale conservation), however, a successful regional priority relies on the effective national or local implementation of the conservation management process (Kark et al. 2009; Rudd et al., 2011; Mazor et al., 2013; Beger et al., 2015).
Although research effort is well-proportioned among species in terms conservation status and endemism, a National Red list for Philippine bats (i.e., following the approach of Keller and Bollmann, 2004) is integral to the conservation management of bat species and its habitats and will redefine conservation priorities on a national scale. The global Red List, which is mainly the basis of conservation prioritisation in Philippine bats, although has been designed to indicate the risk of extinction of a species or subspecies on a global scale (IUCN 2001; Rodrigues et al., 2006) and it essentially reflects the extinction risk within the national level it inadequately set conservation priorities because the national populations including its associated threats as a whole is often missed into considerations (Keller and Bollmann, 2004). For example less threatened species are greatly impacted by direct human threats and activities in local or national scale i.e., common species Rousettus amplexicaudatus are harvested in hundreds to thousands in caves despite this species is common and has wide range of distribution, but continuous hunting overtime may result in the ‘Passenger pigeon’s fiasco’, where a common and abundant species went extinct thus conservation-oriented project should also not only target threatened species.
