Assemblages of bats are phylogenetically clustered on a regional scale

Abstract

Phylogenetically related species are assumed to be ecologically similar. Ecological similarity might lead to competition and to low distributional overlap. Therefore, if competitive interactions drive assemblages, we expect a decrease in distributional overlap with increasing phylogenetic relatedness and phylogenetic over-dispersion in assemblages. We tested this hypothesis by evaluating the mean phylogenetic distance of bat assemblages within grid cells of ≈36km2 across Bavaria, Germany (887 grids; 20,023 records). To calculate phylogenetic distance between species, we used a phylogenetic tree derived from sequences of three mitochondrial genes (cytb, COI, ND1), two nuclear-protein-encoding genes (vWF, RAG2) and the genes encoding16S rRNA, 12S rRNA and tRNA-Val. Overall, bat species co-occurring within grid cells were more similar than expected from null models (phylogenetic clustering). This suggests that on the considered scale, bat assemblages are triggered more by environmental filters than by competition. Furthermore, mean phylogenetic distance decreased with the amount of anthropogenic habitats within grids. This contrasts with species richness of bats, which increased with anthropogenic habitats.