When fruit bats forage, they serve an important ecological function, such as seed dispersal. Although several authors have approached the significance of bats in generating ecosystem services, there is a gap in understanding the importance of the seed dispersal by fruit bats for ecosystems and society. To fill this gap, we considered different components, such as ecosystem service drivers, functional ecosystem services, structural ecosystem services, and ecosystem services to humans. By taking two agroecosystems from the Colombian Andean region (mixed crops and extensive livestock) as the study cases, the following methodological approach was applied: (i) sampling of frugivorous bats (driver) present in the agroecosystems; (ii) identification of plants dispersed by bats (functional ecosystem services) in each agroecosystem; (iii) identification of the uses given to the plants spread (ecosystem services to humans). Finally, the plants spread by bats were considered drivers for soil fertility as well. In line of this, this research is the first in proposing a “causality chain approach” regarding the generation of ecosystem services by focusing on bat-dispersed plants. The research highlights that the diversity in frugivorous bats, the plants spread by bats, and the number of uses made of these plants were higher in mixed crops.

蝙蝠觅食时，它们具有重要的生态功能，例如种子散播。尽管有几位作者已经探讨了蝙蝠在产生生态系统服务中的重要性，但在理解果蝠散播种子对生态系统和社会的重要性方面仍有差距。为了填补这一空白，我们考虑了不同的组成部分，例如生态系统服务驱动程序，功能性生态系统服务，结构性生态系统服务以及对人类的生态系统服务。通过以哥伦比亚安第斯地区的两种农业生态系统（混合作物和广泛的牲畜）为研究案例，采用了以下方法学方法：（ii）查明在每个农业生态系统中蝙蝠分散的植物（功能性生态系统服务）；（iii）确定对植物传播的用途（对人类的生态系统服务）。最后，蝙蝠传播的植物也被认为是土壤肥力的驱动力。有鉴于此，这项研究是第一个提出关于“生态系统服务”的“因果链方法”的研究，该方法关注于蝙蝠分散的植物。该研究突出表明，在混合作物中，节食蝙蝠的多样性，蝙蝠传播的植物以及这些植物的使用数量都更高。