Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest

Mountain environments, characterized by high levels of endemism, are at risk of experiencing significant biodiversity loss due to current trends in global warming. While many acknowledge their importance and vulnerability, these ecosystems still remain poorly studied, particularly for taxa that are...

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Main Authors:	Chaverri, Gloriana, Garin, Inazio, Alberdi, Antton, Jimenez, Lide, Castillo-Salazar, Cristian, Aihartza, Joxerra
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2016
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051729/

id	pubmed-5051729
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-50517292016-10-27 Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest Chaverri, Gloriana Garin, Inazio Alberdi, Antton Jimenez, Lide Castillo-Salazar, Cristian Aihartza, Joxerra Research Article Mountain environments, characterized by high levels of endemism, are at risk of experiencing significant biodiversity loss due to current trends in global warming. While many acknowledge their importance and vulnerability, these ecosystems still remain poorly studied, particularly for taxa that are difficult to sample such as bats. Aiming to estimate the amount of cryptic diversity among bats of a Neotropical montane cloud forest in Talamanca Range—south-east Central America—, we performed a 15-night sampling campaign, which resulted in 90 captured bats belonging to 8 species. We sequenced their mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and screened their inter- and intraspecific genetic variation. Phylogenetic relations with conspecifics and closely related species from other geographic regions were established using Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian inference methods, as well as median-joining haplotype networks. Mitochondrial lineages highly divergent from hitherto characterized populations (> 9% COI dissimilarity) were found in Myotis oxyotus and Hylonycteris underwoodi. Sturnira burtonlimi and M. keaysi also showed distinct mitochondrial structure with sibling species and/or populations. These results suggest that mountains in the region hold a high degree of endemicity potential that has previously been ignored in bats. They also warn of the high extinction risk montane bats may be facing due to climatic change, particularly in isolated mountain systems like Talamanca Range. Public Library of Science 2016-10-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5051729/ /pubmed/27706168 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0162712 Text en © 2016 Chaverri et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Chaverri, Gloriana Garin, Inazio Alberdi, Antton Jimenez, Lide Castillo-Salazar, Cristian Aihartza, Joxerra
spellingShingle	Chaverri, Gloriana Garin, Inazio Alberdi, Antton Jimenez, Lide Castillo-Salazar, Cristian Aihartza, Joxerra Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest
author_facet	Chaverri, Gloriana Garin, Inazio Alberdi, Antton Jimenez, Lide Castillo-Salazar, Cristian Aihartza, Joxerra
author_sort	Chaverri, Gloriana
title	Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest
title_short	Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest
title_full	Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest
title_fullStr	Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest
title_full_unstemmed	Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest
title_sort	unveiling the hidden bat diversity of a neotropical montane forest
description	Mountain environments, characterized by high levels of endemism, are at risk of experiencing significant biodiversity loss due to current trends in global warming. While many acknowledge their importance and vulnerability, these ecosystems still remain poorly studied, particularly for taxa that are difficult to sample such as bats. Aiming to estimate the amount of cryptic diversity among bats of a Neotropical montane cloud forest in Talamanca Range—south-east Central America—, we performed a 15-night sampling campaign, which resulted in 90 captured bats belonging to 8 species. We sequenced their mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) and screened their inter- and intraspecific genetic variation. Phylogenetic relations with conspecifics and closely related species from other geographic regions were established using Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian inference methods, as well as median-joining haplotype networks. Mitochondrial lineages highly divergent from hitherto characterized populations (> 9% COI dissimilarity) were found in Myotis oxyotus and Hylonycteris underwoodi. Sturnira burtonlimi and M. keaysi also showed distinct mitochondrial structure with sibling species and/or populations. These results suggest that mountains in the region hold a high degree of endemicity potential that has previously been ignored in bats. They also warn of the high extinction risk montane bats may be facing due to climatic change, particularly in isolated mountain systems like Talamanca Range.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2016
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051729/
_version_	1613673917291954176

Unveiling the Hidden Bat Diversity of a Neotropical Montane Forest

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