An African bat in Europe, Plecotus gaisleri: Biogeographic and ecological insights from molecular taxonomy and Species Distribution Models

Abstract

Because of the high risk of going unnoticed, cryptic species represent a major challenge to biodiversity assessments, and this is particularly true for taxa that include many such species, for example, bats. Long‐eared bats from the genus Plecotus comprise numerous cryptic species occurring in the Mediterranean Region and present complex phylogenetic relationships and often unclear distributions, particularly at the edge of their known ranges and on islands. Here, we combine Species Distribution Models (SDMs), field surveys and molecular analyses to shed light on the presence of a cryptic long‐eared bat species from North Africa, Plecotus gaisleri, on the islands of the Sicily Channel, providing strong evidence that this species also occurs in Europe, at least on the islands of the Western Mediterranean Sea that act as a crossroad between the Old Continent and Africa. Species Distribution Models built using African records of P. gaisleri and projected to the Sicily Channel Islands showed that all these islands are potentially suitable for the species. Molecular identification of Plecotus captured on Pantelleria, and recent data from Malta and Gozo, confirmed the species' presence on two of the islands in question. Besides confirming that P. gaisleri occurs on Pantelleria, haplotype network reconstructions highlighted moderate structuring between insular and continental populations of this species. Our results remark the role of Italy as a bat diversity hotspot in the Mediterranean and also highlight the need to include P. gaisleri in European faunal checklists and conservation directives, confirming the usefulness of combining different approaches to explore the presence of cryptic species outside their known ranges—a fundamental step to informing conservation.

Body Size Variation in Italian Lesser Horseshoe Bats Rhinolophus hipposideros over 147 Years: Exploring the Effects of Climate Change, Urbanization and Geography

“…First, to avoid spatial autocorrelation, we screened records in ArcGis (v. 10.2.2) using the average nearest neighbour analysis to remove spatially correlated records and ensure independence ( Supplementary Material Figures S1 and S2 ). This analysis calculates the mean distance (expressed as Euclidean distance) between presence records and compares it to the mean distance obtained for a random distribution [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. This resulted in a forearm length sample size = 36 and skull sample size = 31 ( Figure 1 ; Supplementary Material Tables S1 and S2 ).…”

Effects of Colonization, Geography and Environment on Genetic Divergence in the Intermediate Leaf-Nosed Bat, Hipposideros larvatus

“…The combined effects among multiple drivers contribute to the genetic variation and complex evolutionary processes in H. larvatus . Furthermore, the genetic differentiation between mainland and the island suggests that it is necessary to integrate the phenotypic, environmental and genetic data to assess the cryptic taxa in H. larvatus in further research, like some successful cases [ 70 , 71 , 72 ]. At the same time, the conservation of island ecosystems coastal areas is of fundamental importance to preserve bat populations on Hainan Island.…”

Accessing habitat suitability and connectivity for the westernmost population of Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus gedrosianus, Blanford, 1877) based on climate changes scenarios in Iran

“…The TSS [84] was used to convert the continuous maps of habitat suitability to the binary maps (suitable/unsuitable). After identifying the threshold, the metrics of sensitivity, specificity, correct classification, and miss classification were used to assess the power of the threshold [3,85].…”