Understanding biodiversity patterns as well as drivers of population declines, and range losses provides crucial baselines for monitoring and conservation. However, the information needed to evaluate such trends remains unstandardised and sparsely available for many taxonomic groups and habitats, including the cave-dwelling bats and cave ecosystems. We developed the DarkCideS 1.0 ( https://darkcides.org/ ), a global database of bat caves and species synthesised from publicly available information and datasets. The DarkCideS 1.0 is by far the largest database for cave-dwelling bats, which contains information for geographical location, ecological status, species traits, and parasites and hyperparasites for 679 bat species are known to occur in caves or use caves in part of their life histories. The database currently contains 6746 georeferenced occurrences for 402 cave-dwelling bat species from 2002 cave sites in 46 countries and 12 terrestrial biomes. The database has been developed to be collaborative and open-access, allowing continuous data-sharing among the community of bat researchers and conservation biologists to advance bat research and comparative monitoring and prioritisation for conservation.

Asociación para la Sostenibilidad e Investigación Científica en Honduras Barrio La Granja entre 28 y 29 calle C P 504 Comayagüela M D C Francisco Morazán Tegucigalpa Honduras

Barbastella Echology Gentpoortstraat 50 9800 Deinze Belgium

Center for Integrative Conservation Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and the Center for Conservation Biology Core Botanical Gardens Chinese Academy of Sciences Yunnan P R China

Centro de Biodiversidad y Genética Universidad Mayor de San Simón Casilla 538 Cochabamba Bolivia

Centro de Investigación de Recursos Acuáticos Universidad Autónoma del Beni José Ballivián Campus Dr Hernán Melgar Justiniano Santísima Trinidad Beni Bolivia

Conservation Science Group Department of Zoology University of Cambridge Cambridge UK

Department of Biodiversity Institute of Bioscience Universidade Estadual Paulista Rio Claro São Paulo Brazil

Department of Biology Southern Luzon State University Lucban Quezon Philippines

Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management Maasai Mara University Narok Kenya

Department of Zoology Federal University of Paraná Curitiba PR Brazil

Division of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science Prince of Songkla University Hat Yai Songkhla Thailand

Ecology and Conservation Research Lab Department of Biological Sciences College of Science and Mathematics University of Southern Mindanao Kabacan North Cotabato Philippines

Faculty of Science University of South Bohemia 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic

FAUNA Research Alliance PO Box 5092 Kahibah NSW 2290 Australia

Fundación Antonio Núñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y el Hombre Calle 5ta B No 6611 e 66 y 70 Miramar Playa La Habana Cuba

Grupo en Conservación y Manejo de Vida Silvestre Universidad Nacional de Colombia Bogotá Colombia

International College of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing P R China

Laboratoire de Biosurveillance de l'Environnement Faculté des Sciences de Bizerte Université de Carthage 7021 Zarzouna Tunisia

Laboratório de Ciência Aplicada à Conservação da Biodiversidade Department of Zoology Universidade Federal de Pernambuco Pernambuco Brazil

Laboratório de Mastozoologia do Departamento de Biologia Animal da Universidade Federal de Viçosa Minas Gerais Viçosa Brasil

Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health Laboratory Hopkirk Research Institute Massey University Palmerston North New Zealand

Museum of Natural History of the University of the Philippines Los Banos Laguna Philippines

National Centre for Biological Sciences Bangalore India

National Museum of Natural History Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Sofia Bulgaria

Operation Wallacea Ltd Wallace House Old Bolingbroke Lincolnshire PE23 4EX United Kingdom

Programa de Pós Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação Instituto de Biociências Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul Campo Grande Brazil

Programa para la Conservación de los Murciélagos de Bolivia Cochabamba y Beni Beni Bolivia

Proyecto CUBABAT Calle América 6503 e Jáuregui y Santa Isabel 40100 Matanzas Cuba

Research Group Mycology Department of Biology Ghent University 9000 Ghent Belgium

School of Biological Sciences The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong SAR China

School of Environmental and Life Sciences Biology Building University of Newcastle University Drive Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia

School of Environmental Science and Management University of the Philippines Los Banos Laguna Philippines

School of Zoology Faculty of Life sciences Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv Israel

Sede del Sur Universidad de Costa Rica 4000 Alamedas Golfito 60701 Costa Rica

Sociedad Espeleológica de Cuba Calle 9na 8402 e 84 y 84ª Playa La Habana Cuba

Zukunftskolleg and the Center for Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour University of Konstanz Universitätsstrasse 10 Baden Württemberg Konstanz Germany

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DarkCideS 1.0, a global database for bats in karsts and caves