Abstract
Cabo Verde Archipelago presents one of the largest knowledge gaps in the distribution and taxonomy of bats in the world. Old works indicated that there are five species classified as European taxa. We have conducted an integrative taxonomy to revise the systematic position and distribution of Cabo Verdean bats with molecular, morphological, and ecological data, to test their native or exotic origin, and infer possible colonization patterns based on fieldwork and museum samples. Results showed that Cabo Verde Hypsugo is closely related to those from the Canary Islands, in which the taxonomic status is under debate, presenting unique mitochondrial and nuclear haplotypes. We also expanded the distribution of Taphozous nudiventris for Fogo Island through pellets and acoustic identification, showed unique haplotypes for this species, and that Miniopterus schreibersii shared a haplotype with European, North African, and Western Asian specimens. The morphological and acoustic identification of Cabo Verdean specimens was challenging because of the lack of modern morphological descriptions and similarity of echolocation calls within the same genus. More studies are definitely needed to access the systematic of bat species in the archipelago, but this work is the first step for the establishment of conservation actions of the probable only native Cabo Verdean mammals.
Highlights
Biodiversity loss is one of the major environmental problems, threatening valuable ecosystem services [1]
We prove that individuals from both may begroups good at colonizing islands, as it occurs in many islands, and it alsorelatively has been island share the same haplotype, supporting theMediterranean hypothesis of gene flow among reported as a vagrant in the Great
Recognizing distinct lineages is fundamental for the conservation actions and little is known about the phylogenetic relationships and the genetic diversity of species present in Cabo Verde
Summary
Biodiversity loss is one of the major environmental problems, threatening valuable ecosystem services [1]. In order to have an accurate picture of the biodiversity loss, accurate species inventories and their distribution are needed [2,3]. The assessment of global biodiversity is a challenge because most species were still not formally described and the geographical distribution of most species are poorly understood, usually referred to as Linnean and Wallacean shortfalls respectively [2,4,5]. Given the limited resources and urgency for biodiversity rescue, a rapid assessment method is required [6]. Phylogenetic analysis has a huge impact on the understanding of relationships among lineages, adding power and robustness to biodiversity assessment [5]. Spectacular levels of cryptic diversity have been frequently reported in Europe [7,8,9,10,11,12,13]
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