DOI: 10.5061/dryad.w3r2280s5
title: Forbidden fruits? Ecosystem services from seed dispersal by fruit bats in the context of latent zoonotic risk

description: Old world fruit bats are important seed dispersers of forest plants as
 well as of commercial fruit crops. Bats scatter seeds across landscapes
 and also aggregate (clump) seeds under feeding and roosting trees. In
 agroforestry landscapes, bat frugivory and seed dispersal can result in
 simultaneous accrual of socio-economic benefits and costs to humans, which
 may be further affected by human health risks from zoonotic spillover
 through human-bat interactions. In our study, we used an integrated
 approach to assess socio-economic benefits (from seed dispersal) and costs
 (from frugivory) from bats, in relation to latent zoonotic risk. We
 carried out the study in five agroforestry landscapes along India’s
 Western Ghats, for selected commercial fruit crops (cashew, areca, banana,
 and other pulpy/fleshy fruits). Specifically, we hypothesized that
 people’s perceptions of benefits from fruit bats would be correlated with
 measured extents of clumped seed dispersal in fruit plantations. We
 conducted ecological studies to investigate the effects of fruit crop type
 and plantation attributes on clump-dispersal, and in turn, on perceived
 “net benefits” assessed from interviews with plantation-associated people.
 We then explored associations between perceived socio-economic net
 benefits and spatial data on disease risk factors for fruit-bat-linked
 henipavirus transmission. We found that the extent of bat-mediated
 clump-dispersal was highest for cashew, especially in isolated
 plantations. People’s perceptions of benefits from fruit bats matched the
 measured extents of clump-dispersal of cashew and areca. These benefits
 came with some costs from scatter-dispersal and damage to other fleshy
 fruits from frugivory by bats. Interestingly, we did not detect tradeoffs
 between perceived net benefits from bats and disease risk, which is of
 significance for bat conservation and its implications for human
 well-being. Overall, our results highlight that bat-mediated seed
 dispersal needs to be sustained as an important ecosystem service, despite
 some latent zoonotic risk, in the Anthropocene.
description: The dataset was collected using a combination of multiple
 methods, described in detail in our manuscript and supporting information.
 The methods included field-based ecological studies of fruit bat seed
 dispersal at fruit plantations, social data collection from interviews
 with plantation-associated people, and assessments for henipavirus
 transmission risk in our study area based on secondary information and our
 field observations. In the uploaded dataset, we have
 provided data on 1) plantation-level attributes indicating ecological
 variables and extents of bat seed dispersal in relation to naturally
 dropped seeds, 2) data used to assign disease risk levels, at the scale of
 administrative units in our study area, and 3) disease risk categories
 assigned by us, and net benefit scores derived from interview responses
 about fruit bats. All these data were used in our analyses.
 For social perception data, the identity of respondents or
 site-level identifiers or detailed responses were not uploaded due to
 ethical considerations. Summaries of social perception data have already
 been provided in the main manuscript and the supporting
 information.
description: We have provided detailed metadata on all data files and
 variables in the uploaded dataset. The metadata are self-explanatory. Any
 missing values or unavailable data have been denoted by NE or NA. The
 explanation for all acronyms, units, etc. used can be found in the ReadMe
 and metadata worksheets of the main data file (Excel workbook).