Genetic Structure and Male-Mediated Gene Flow in the Ghost Bat (Macroderma gigas)

Wilmer, Jessica Worthington; Hall, Les; Barratt, E. M.; Moritz, Craig

doi:10.2307/2640903

Cited by 49 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…The authors attributed the results to female philopatry and male-biased dispersal. A similar scenario was described for the ghost bat Macroderma gigas [25]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Phylogeography of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus): Marked population structure, Neotropical Pleistocene vicariance and incongruence between nuclear and mtDNA markers

et al. 2009

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BackgroundThe common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus is an excellent model organism for studying ecological vicariance in the Neotropics due to its broad geographic range and its preference for forested areas as roosting sites. With the objective of testing for Pleistocene ecological vicariance, we sequenced a mitocondrial DNA (mtDNA) marker and two nuclear markers (RAG2 and DRB) to try to understand how Pleistocene glaciations affected the distribution of intraspecific lineages in this bat.ResultsFive reciprocally monophyletic clades were evident in the mitochondrial gene tree, and in most cases with high bootstrap support: Central America (CA), Amazon and Cerrado (AMC), Pantanal (PAN), Northern Atlantic Forest (NAF) and Southern Atlantic Forest (SAF). The Atlantic forest clades formed a monophyletic clade with high bootstrap support, creating an east/west division for this species in South America. On the one hand, all coalescent and non-coalescent estimates point to a Pleistocene time of divergence between the clades. On the other hand, the nuclear markers showed extensive sharing of haplotypes between distant localities, a result compatible with male-biased gene flow. In order to test if the disparity between the mitochondrial and nuclear markers was due to the difference in mutation rate and effective size, we performed a coalescent simulation to examine the feasibility that, given the time of separation between the observed lineages, even with a gene flow rate close to zero, there would not be reciprocal monophyly for a neutral nuclear marker. We used the observed values of theta and an estimated mutation rate for the nuclear marker gene to perform 1000 iterations of the simulation. The results of this simulation were inconclusive: the number of iterations with and without reciprocal monophyly of one or more clades are similar.ConclusionsWe therefore conclude that the pattern exhibited by the common vampire bat, with marked geographical structure for a mitochondrial marker and no phylogeographic structure for nuclear markers is compatible with a historical scenario of complete isolation of refuge-like populations during the Pleistocene. The results on demographic history on this species is compatible with the Carnaval-Moritz model of Pleistocene vicariance, with demographic expansions in the southern Atlantic forest.

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“…The authors attributed the results to female philopatry and male-biased dispersal. A similar scenario was described for the ghost bat Macroderma gigas [25]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Phylogeography of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus): Marked population structure, Neotropical Pleistocene vicariance and incongruence between nuclear and mtDNA markers

et al. 2009

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“…Despite these studies, outstanding questions relating to Australian bird speciation remain untackled, particularly with regard to time: previous studies of differentiation have been unable to reveal the timing of diversification, although such timing has been inferred for some mammals (Wilmer et al 1999) and extensively for the biota in the Wet Tropics in Australia's northeast (Schneider et al 1998). For example, did speciation in Carpentaria occur during Pleistocene times as many North American passerines seem to have done (Johnson and Cicero 2004), or did it happen earlier?…”

Section: Australian Phylogeographymentioning

confidence: 99%

Speciational History of Australian Grass Finches (Poephila) Inferred From Thirty Gene Trees*

Jennings

Edwards

2005

Evol

110

194

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Multilocus genealogical approaches are still uncommon in phylogeography and historical demography, fields which have been dominated by microsatellite markers and mitochondrial DNA, particularly for vertebrates. Using 30 newly developed anonymous nuclear loci, we estimated population divergence times and ancestral population sizes of three closely related species of Australian grass finches (Poephila) distributed across two barriers in northern Australia. We verified that substitution rates were generally constant both among lineages and among loci, and that intralocus recombination was uncommon in our dataset, thereby satisfying two assumptions of our multilocus analysis. The reconstructed gene trees exhibited all three possible tree topologies and displayed considerable variation in coalescent times, yet this information provided the raw data for maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation of population divergence times and ancestral population sizes. Estimates of these parameters were in close agreement with each other regardless of statistical approach and our Bayesian estimates were robust to prior assumptions. Our results suggest that black-throated finches (Poephila cincta) diverged from long-tailed finches (P. acuticauda and P. hecki) across the Carpentarian Barrier in northeastern Australia around 0.6 million years ago (mya), and that P. acuticauda diverged from P. hecki across the Kimberley Plateau-Arnhem Land Barrier in northwestern Australia approximately 0.3 mya. Bayesian 95% credibility intervals around these estimates strongly support Pleistocene timing for both speciation events, despite the fact that many gene divergences across the Carpentarian region clearly predated the Pleistocene. Estimates of ancestral effective population sizes for the basal ancestor and long-tailed finch ancestor were large (about 521,000 and about 384,000, respectively). Although the errors around the population size parameter estimates are considerable, they are the first for birds taking into account multiple sources of variance.

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“…Shine 1986). In the context of observed population declines of the ghost bat in the Holocene (Molnar et al 1984, Woinarski et al 2014), susceptibility to bufonid toxins could further pressure local isolated populations (Worthington Wilmer et al 1999) into extinction vortices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ghost bat's low reproductive out put and stringent roosting requirements exacerbate its vulnerability (Churchill & Helman 1990). Dependence on isolated roosting and breeding caves reduces migration between populations (Worthington Wilmer et al 1999). The distribution of ghost bats has contracted in recent years, with the species now extinct from southern and central Australia (Churchill & Helman 1990).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using genetic data to predict the vulnerability of a native predator to a toxic invader

Shine

Wang

Madani

et al. 2016

Endang. Species. Res.

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Australia has no native toad species, and as a consequence, many Australian predators lack resistance to the toxins of the invasive cane toad Rhinella marina, and die if they ingest one of these toads. Resistance is conferred by a small and consistent genetic change, so genetic data can provide a rapid, non-invasive way to clarify the vulnerability of as-yet-unstudied taxa. To evaluate the hypothesis that a recent decline of ghost bat Macroderma gigas populations in tropical Australia is due to ingestion of cane toads, we sequenced the H1-H2 extracellular domain of the sodium-potassium-ATPase. Two anuran-eating Asian relatives of the Australian species possess the genes that confer bufotoxin resistance, but the ghost bat does not. Like varanid lizards (major victims of the toad invasion), Australian ghost bats appear to have lost their physiological resistance to toad toxins but retained generalist foraging behaviours, potentially including a readiness to attack toads as well as frogs. Our genetic data suggest that cane toads may imperil populations of this iconic predator, and detailed behavioural and ecological studies are warranted.

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Genetic Structure and Male-Mediated Gene Flow in the Ghost Bat (Macroderma gigas)

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

Phylogeography of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus): Marked population structure, Neotropical Pleistocene vicariance and incongruence between nuclear and mtDNA markers

Phylogeography of the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus): Marked population structure, Neotropical Pleistocene vicariance and incongruence between nuclear and mtDNA markers

Speciational History of Australian Grass Finches (Poephila) Inferred From Thirty Gene Trees*

Using genetic data to predict the vulnerability of a native predator to a toxic invader

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