A continent-scale study of the social structure and phylogeography of the bent-wing bat, Miniopterus schreibersii (Mammalia: Chiroptera), using new microsatellite data

Abstract

Miniopterus schreibersii is a cave-dwelling bat species with a wide distribution in the western Palearctic spanning southern and central Europe, North Africa, Anatolia, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. We investigated the social structure and its effects on the genetic makeup of this species, using 10 nuclear microsatellite markers and a partial fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. Samples were examined from the species' entire circum-Mediterranean range. Local structuring that was previously detected among populations of M. schreibersii using mitochondrial markers was not observed for microsatellite markers, indicating male-biased dispersal for the species. Some support was found for postglacial expansions in Europe, with Anatolia potentially acting as the primary refugium during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). However, support for this hypothesis is not as strong as that previously detected using mitochondrial DNA markers. This is likely due to the diminishing effect of male-mediated dispersal, replenishing the nuclear diversity faster than the mitochondrial diversity in regions that are relatively far from the glacial refugia.

Bats Out of Africa: Disentangling the Systematic Position and Biogeography of Bats in Cabo Verde

“…The shallow genetic differentiation in M. schreibersii previously found [ 95 ] and posteriorly confirmed [ 59 , 96 ] by other authors suggests a recent and rapid postglacial re-colonization of Europe, probably from Anatolia acting as a single glacial refugium, which showed the highest allelic richness [ 59 , 96 ]. Unlike the pattern of H .…”

“…Some author suggested that M. s. schreibersii (Kuhl 1817) is a typical representative to Europe, North Africa, and Asia Minor and M. s. pallidus Thomas 1907 is present in the Asian part of Turkey [ 58 ]. Recently, the population structure of M. schreibersii was analyzed using microsatellite and mtDNA [ 59 ]. It was found an approximately uniform distribution of nuclear DNA (nDNA) alleles in contrast with mtDNA, which showed more geographic structuring [ 59 ].…”

“…Recently, the population structure of M. schreibersii was analyzed using microsatellite and mtDNA [ 59 ]. It was found an approximately uniform distribution of nuclear DNA (nDNA) alleles in contrast with mtDNA, which showed more geographic structuring [ 59 ]. The results indicated a male-biased gene flow and female philopatry at a continental scale.…”

“…The results indicated a male-biased gene flow and female philopatry at a continental scale. Moreover, it was found a relatively high genetic diversity in western regions such as Iberia and North Africa, which could be explained by an introgression with a recent described species M. maghrebensis Puechmaille et al 2014 from North Africa [ 59 ]. No samples from Cabo Verde were included in the published literature, so it is unknown which geographic affinities those individuals, only known from Santo Antão Island, could present.…”

Evolutionary relationships and population genetics of the Afrotropical leaf-nosed bats (Chiroptera, Hipposideridae)

“…In most cases, such patterns are attributable to adaptive introgression of mtDNA, demographic disparities, and sex-biased asymmetries; in some cases they found evidence for hybrid zone movement or human agency. Discordant patterns of variation between mitochondrial and nuclear DNA have been reported in at least six other families of bats (Nesi et al 2011;Furman et al 2014;Naidoo et al 2016;Hassanin et al 2018;Demos et al 2019a;Gürün et al 2019). Gürün et al (2019) implicated the role of sex-biased dispersal in causing such discordance, male dispersal spreading nuclear variation farther and faster than the movement of mitochondria.…”