Vet World   Vol.10   November-2017  Article-2

Research Article

Veterinary World, 10(11): 1297-1300

https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2017.1297-1300

Preliminary study of Malaysian fruit bats species diversity in Lenggong Livestock Breeding Center, Perak: Potential risk of spill over infection

Muhammed Mikail1,2,3, T. A. Tengku Rinalfi Putra1,2, Arshad Siti Suri4, Mohd Noor Mohd Hezmee2, and M. T. Marina5
1. Research Centre for Wildlife, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
2. Department of Veterinary Pre Clinical Science, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
3. Directorate of Veterinary Services, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Abubakar Umar Secretariat Bauchi, PMB 0068 Bauchi State, Nigeria.
4. Department of Veterinary Pathology and Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
5. Centre of Foundation for Agricultural Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400, Serdang Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.

Background and Aim: Farms that are neighboring wildlife sanctuaries are at risk of spillover infection from wildlife, and the objective of this research is to examine the species diversity of Malaysian fruit bats in livestock farm in determining the possible risk of spill over infection to livestock.

Materials and Methods: Fifty individual fruit bats were captured using six mists net, from May to July 2017. The nets were set at dusk (1830 h) as bats emerge for foraging and monitored at every 30-min intervals throughout the night until dawn when they returned to the roost. The nets were closed for the day until next night, and captured bats were identified to species levels.

Results: All the captured bats were mega chiropterans, and Cynopterus brachyotis was the highest captured species, representing 40% of the total capture. Shannon-Weiner index is 2.80, and Simpson index is 0.2. Our result suggests that there is a degree of species dominance with low diversity in Lenggong Livestock Breeding Center.

Conclusion: We concluded that fruit bats are indeed, encroaching livestock areas and the species identified could be a potential source of infection to susceptible livestock. Hence, an active surveillance should be embarked on farms that border wildlife sanctuaries. Keywords: Fruit bats, Lyssaviruses, Nipah virus, Wildlife sanctuaries, Zoonotic diseases.

Keywords: Fruit bats, Lyssaviruses, Nipah virus, Wildlife sanctuaries, Zoonotic diseases.

How to cite this article: Mikail M, Putra TATR, Suri AS, Hezmee MNM, Marina MT (2017) Preliminary study of Malaysian fruit bats species diversity in Lenggong Livestock Breeding Center, Perak: Potential risk of spill over infection, Veterinary World, 10(11): 1297-1300.

Received: 01-08-2017  Accepted: 05-10-2017     Published online: 02-11-2017

Corresponding author: T. A. Tengku Rinalfi Putra   E-mail: rinalfi@upm.edu.my

DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2017.1297-1300

Copyright: Mikail, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.