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The clearing of large swaths of rainforest to make way for oil palm plantations has resulted in a significant decline in the bat population, which in turn has had a disturbing ripple effect on the wider ecosystem, scientists have warned.

Ibnu Maryanto, from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the decrease in bat numbers was most marked in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

“Rainforests are the natural habitat for up 10 species of bats, but with the current rate of forest conversion to plantations, the number of bat species living in certain areas has gone down to just six because they can’t adapt to the habitat change,” he said on the sidelines of the two-day Southeast Asia Bat Conference in Bogor earlier this week.

“Many areas with great colonies of bats, such as Cibinong in West Java, have been [deforested], and this could lead to a malaria epidemic in those areas, since bats feed on [malaria parasite-carrying] mosquitoes.”

Lukman Hakim, the LIPI chairman, said the loss of bats would also have a negative impact on the native vegetation in their habitats.

“Bats have a vital ecological role to balance the ecosystem,” he said, adding that this role included helping pollinate a wide variety of tropical fruit plants.

Siti Nuramaliati Prijono, head of LIPI’s center for biological research, said a study carried out at the Bogor Botanical Garden showed that the bats there played a role in pollinating more than 52 species of plants.

She added that at least 186 types of tropical plants commonly used in traditional medicine and food also relied on bats from the megachiroptera order for their pollination and distribution of seeds.

“These are fruit-eating bats that dump the seeds far from the original tree, therefore they also serve as the main agent for seed distribution,” Siti said.

Several other species of bats also play an important role by feeding on the insects that commonly plague agricultural crops, including rice, she said.

Indonesia is home to 225 of the around 1,240 bat species in the world, accounting for 31 percent of all mammal species found in the country, Lukman said.

However, around 10 percent of the bat species in the country are on the brink of extinction, with very few now being sighted in their natural habitats.

“There are two bat species on Alor Island [in East Nusa Tenggara] that only have a few individuals left,” said Ibnu, one of the country’s leading chiropterologists, or bat experts.

Lukman said that while social and economic development was essential for the country’s growth, development plans must seriously take into account ways to minimize the disruption to Indonesia’s rich biodiversity and natural ecosystems.

“The development plans should also include the maintenance of conservation areas [to make sure the natural balance is not disturbed],” Lukman said.

He added LIPI believed that there should ideally be at least 54 conservation areas established across the country — representing the various vegetation types typical to certain areas — to support the indigenous flora and fauna there.

“We don’t want, sometime in the future, to have to look back and say that, yes, a certain species of animal once existed in Indonesia,” he said.