Agricultural expansion and intensification increasingly threaten birds and bats, especially insectivorous species from the tropics. Cacao agroforests in tropical rainforest areas have been shown to support higher bird and bat biodiversity than other land-use systems, but their suitability for tropical dry forest biodiversity remains unclear. We present the first assessment of bird and bat diversity patterns in cacao agroforests inside tropical dry forest landscapes. We investigated the response of bird and bat species richness and abundance to forest distance and season across 12 smallholder, organic cacao agroforests and adjacent tropical dry forests in the Peruvian lowlands of Piura. We found that insectivorous bird abundance and species richness increased with forest distance in the dry but not in the rainy season, indicating the value of cacao agroforests for these birds when resources are scarce in forests. In the case of bats, we observed more species in agroforests with increasing forest distance independent of season, and the abundance of insectivorous species increased along the gradient. Other dietary groups and forest specialists of both taxa did not vary notably across the forest distance gradient. Our findings point to the relevance of cacao agroforests as alternative habitats for insectivorous birds and bats in tropical dry forest landscapes, especially during the dry season. We suggest that the maintenance of wildlife friendly cacao agroforests, parallel to dry forest conservation and restoration, creates win-win situations for both the conservation of tropical dry forest fauna and the maintenance of related ecosystem services from which cacao smallholders may benefit.

农业扩张和集约化对鸟类和蝙蝠的威胁越来越大，尤其是热带地区的食虫物种。与其他土地利用系统相比，热带雨林地区的可可农林支持更高的鸟类和蝙蝠生物多样性，但它们对热带干旱森林生物多样性的适用性仍不清楚。我们首次评估了热带干旱森林景观内可可农林中鸟类和蝙蝠的多样性模式。我们调查了秘鲁皮乌拉低地的 12 个小农、有机可可农林和邻近热带干旱森林的鸟类和蝙蝠物种丰富度和丰度对森林距离和季节的响应。我们发现，在旱季，食虫鸟类的数量和物种丰富度随着森林距离的增加而增加，但在雨季则没有，当森林资源稀缺时，表明可可农林对这些鸟类的价值。就蝙蝠而言，随着森林距离的增加，与季节无关，我们在农林中观察到更多的物种，并且食虫物种的丰度沿梯度增加。两个分类群的其他饮食组和森林专家在森林距离梯度上没有显着变化。我们的研究结果表明，可可农林作为热带干旱森林景观中食虫鸟类和蝙蝠的替代栖息地具有相关性，尤其是在旱季。我们建议维护对野生动物友好的可可农林，与干燥森林的保护和恢复并行，