Systematics of the New World bats Eptesicus and Histiotus suggest trans-marine dispersal followed by Neotropical cryptic diversification ...

• Main Authors: Yi, Xueling, Latch, Emily K.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2022
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Bering Land Bridge
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13426458; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13426458

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Biodiversity can be boosted by colonization of new habitats such as remote islands and separated continents. Molecular studies have suggested that recently evolved organisms probably colonized already separated conti­ nents by dispersal, either via land bridge connections or crossing the ocean. Here we test the on-land and transmarine dispersal hypotheses by evaluating possibilities of colonization routes over the Bering land bridge and across the Atlantic Ocean in the cosmopolitan bat genus Eptesicus (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae). Previous mo­ lecular studies have found New World Eptesicus more closely related to Histiotus, a Neotropical endemic lineage with enlarged ears, than to Old World Eptesicus. However, phylogenetic relationships within the New World group remained unresolved and their evolutionary history was unclear. Here we studied the systematics of New World Eptesicus and Histiotus using extensive taxonomic and geographic sampling, and genomic ...