Evolutionary Scenarios Associated with thePteronotus parnelliiCryptic Species-Complex (Chiroptera: Mormoopidae)

Abstract

Abstract:One of the major challenges to understanding the evolution of Neotropical bats concerns our capacity to successfully scrutinize phylogenetic patterns associated with cases of cryptic species complexes. In this study Pteronotus parnellii is examined as a selected example of a known lineage of mormoopid bat that potentially contains several cryptic species. A samples of 452 individuals from 83 different localities, essentially covering its entire mainland distribution, was evaluated using two genetic markers: COI (mitochondrial) and DBY (nuclear) genes. The findings of this study strongly support the hypothesis of high genetic variability and identify at least six lineages within P. parnellii, some of which appear to be cryptic species. Keywords:Bats, COI, DBY, Neotropical America, Genetic diversity, Biogeography, Phylogeny, taxonomyPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Download source file (73.76 kB) Evolutionary scenarios associated with the Pteronotus parnellii cryptic species-complex (Chiroptera: Mormoopidae) Manuscript body INTRODUCTIONThe Neotropical region is home to the greatest diversity of bats in the world, and it is well known that this fauna awaits a number of basic lines of research, among which cryptic diversity stands as one of the most relevant. Thus, despite recent efforts to address the issue, not only in the Neotropics (Clare, 2011; Clare et al., 2011; Pavan et al., 2011; Larsen et al., 2012;Hernández-Dávila et al., 2012; Pavan et al., 2013; Velazco and Patterson, 2013; Parlos et al., 2014) but also in several other regions of the world (Mayer and von Helversen, 2001;Ibáñez et al., 2006;Furman et al., 2010;Raghuram et al., 2014; Bogdanowicz et al., 2015; Dammhahn et al., 2015;and Hassanin et al., 2015), cryptic species complexes have become a top priority for a number of international agendas.Pteronotus parnellii is investigated here as a special case in which to study cryptic species among Neotropical bats, considering that due to its wide distribution and low morphological differentiation, the family Mormoopidae is an excellent subject for this kind of analysis.The family has only two genera, Mormoops Leach, 1821 and Pteronotus Gray, 1838; both comprising insectivorous, gregarious, and strict cave-dwelling bats, which are found in a wide variety of habitats, ranging from tropical rainforests to arid regions, being particularly abundant in low dry forests throughout the Neotropics.The genus Mormoops has two species, Mormoops blainvillei Leach, 1821 which is distributed across the Greater Antilles and small adjacent islands, and M. megalophylla (Peters, 1864), with an extant distribution extending from Mexico to northwestern South America, and the West Indies. Pteronotus consists of a diverse group of six currently recognized species: P. davyi Gray, 1838; P. gymnonotus Naterer, 1843; P. parnellii (Gray, 1843) and P. personatus (Wagner, 1843), which are all distributed from Mexico to Brazil, and P. macleayi (Gray, 1843) and P. quadridens (Gundlach, 1840), which are known from the A...

Coexistence of two sympatric cryptic bat species in French Guiana: insights from genetic, acoustic and ecological data

“…collected from four caves in French Guiana. Using COI - a mtDNA marker commonly employed for species barcoding - our phylogenetic reconstruction of Pteronotus reveals two distinct, non-overlapping haplogroups corresponding to cryptic species P. alitonus and P. rubiginosus , in accordance with previous findings (see [ 24 , 25 , 27 , 28 ]). The smallest divergence between P .…”

“…In order to identify the species to which the sampled specimens belonged, we built a tree based on the COI sequences of these 80 individuals and added 28 samples obtained in previous studies [ 24 , 25 , 28 ] for which COI sequences were retrieved from Genebank (see Additional file 1 : Table S1 for the detailed list of GenBank sequences used). Pteronotus gymnonotus and P. personatus were used as outgroups.…”

“…In French Guiana, the presence of two sympatric groups referred to as Pteronotus sp3 and sp4 has been proposed (sensu [ 24 , 27 ]) using several tools: genetics – using mitochondrial molecular markers such as the cytochrome oxidase 1 (CO1), the cytochrome b (Cyt b ), or the y-linked Dby genes [ 24 , 25 , 28 ] –, morphology [ 24 , 28 ], and bioacoustics [ 28 , 29 ]. Recently these two groups have been diagnosed as two distinct species, P. rubiginosus corresponding to P .…”

Bats of Saint Vincent, Lesser Antilles

“…The taxonomy of the Pteronotus parnellii complex (Smith 1972) is currently in flux and it is likely that a number of species are cryptic and represent unnamed taxa. Although Davalos (2006) applied the name Pteronotus rubiginosus to populations in northern South America, recent molecular and phonic data from the Guianan Shield provide clear evidence of unrecognized spe¬ cies diversity (Clare et al 2013;Thoisy et al 2014;Lopez-Wilchis et al 2016;Marroig 2016, 15 2017). In particular, Marroig (2016, 2017) performed a robust morphometric and phylogenetic analyses of Pteronotus collected across the Neotropi¬ cal distribution of the genus, including 20 specimens collected from St. Vincent.…”

Rapid assessment of bat diversity in the biological station ‘Las Guacamayas’ (‘Laguna del Tigre’ National Park, Guatemala)

“…Previously considered a species in its own right, Pteronotus parnellii is now seen as a complex of species difficult to identify (Lewis-Orrit et al 2001, Dávalos 2006, Clare et al 2013, De Thoisy et al 2014, López-Wilchis et al 2016, López-Baucells et al 2017. Captured 18 times (11 males and seven females) and recorded at all capture sites, this species is the most commonly captured bat in the biological station.…”