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

Abstract

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.

Host–pathogen evolutionary signatures reveal dynamics and future invasions of vampire bat rabies

“…The ubiquity of sex-biased dispersal in animals suggests sex-biased pathogen spread could widely influence the distribution and invasion dynamics of emerging diseases. Prior population genetic studies concluded that the low vagility and small home range sizes of vampire bats generate high genetic differentiation among populations (12,13). However, genetic lineages of VBRV are geographically widespread, implying that the virus overcomes the genetic isolation of its host through a currently unidentified dispersal mechanism (14,15).…”

Microsatélites revelan heterocigosidad y estructura poblacional de murciélagos vampiro (Desmodus rotundus) (Quiróptera: Phyllostomidae) de México

“…vampire bats from different geographic mtDNA clades with the biogeographic pattern revealing strong population structure suggesting the possibility of cryptic species (Martins, Ditchfield, Meyer, & Morgante, 2007). Martins, Templeton, Pavan, Kohlbach, and Morgante (2009), examined vampire bats samples from Central America and Brazil by using mitochondrial and nuclear markers. Their results revealed geographical structure with a historical scenario with mtDNA but no phylogeographic structure with nuclear markers and suggested that these contrasting patterns are compatible with complete isolation in Pleistocene refuges.…”

Speciation in Brazilian Atlantic Forest Mosquitoes: A Mini-Review of the Anopheles cruzii Species Complex

“…cruzii complex is compatible with a historical scenario of populations isolated during the Pleistocene ecological changes (Carnaval et al, 2009). The subdivision of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest has been recognized as a cause of endemicity, for example, in bats (Martins et al, 2009) and pit vipers (Grazziotin et al, 2006) and climatic changes have been proposed to explain the differentiation among many forestobligate species (Carnaval et al, 2009;Marroig et al, 2004;Pedro et al, 2008).…”