article · Zoologica Scripta
Afrotropical long-fingered bats belonging to the genus Miniopterus have undergone rapid diversification, leading to significant hidden biodiversity. An analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences from 352 specimens gathered across 78 distinct locations, supplemented by public sequence records, assessed 25 recognised species. The genetic divergence measured across mitochondrial clades averaged 9.3 percent, pointing to the existence of up to five undescribed species. Furthermore, coalescent methods confirmed the distinct genetic isolation of eight unnamed lineages. A considerable concentration of these lineages occurs within East Africa, demonstrating that current taxonomies have substantially underestimated species numbers in the region. The evolutionary branching patterns, characterised by long outer branches and short connecting internal nodes, suggest that Miniopterus experienced a rapid evolutionary radiation, though additional genomic data are required to clarify deeper ancestral relationships.
Accurately identifying cryptic species is essential for understanding regional biodiversity and tracking ecosystem health. By revealing unrecognised bat species in East Africa, this research provides the taxonomic baseline necessary for wildlife conservation planning, ecological monitoring, and broader biological research across the Afrotropical realm.
The abstract does not indicate an application pathway, as this is early-stage basic taxonomic and phylogenetic research.
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Abstract The Old World bat family Miniopteridae comprises only the genus Miniopterus , which includes 20 currently recognized species from the Afrotropical realm and 15 species from Eurasia and Australasia. Since 2003, the number of recognized Miniopterus species has grown from 19 to 35, with most newly described species endemic to Madagascar and the Comoros Archipelago. We investigated genetic variation, phylogenetic relationships and clade membership in Miniopterus focusing on Afrotropical taxa. We generated mitochondrial cytochrome‐ b (cyt‐ b ) and nuclear intron data (five genes) from 352 vouchered individuals collected at 78 georeferenced localities. Including 99 additional mitochondrial sequences from GenBank, we analysed a total of 25 recognized species. Mitochondrial genetic distances among cyt‐ b ‐supported clades averaged 9.3%, representing as many as five undescribed species. Multilocus coalescent delimitation strongly supported the genetic isolation of eight of nine tested unnamed clades. A large number of sampled clades in sub‐Saharan Africa are distributed wholly or partly in East Africa (nine of 13 clades), suggesting that Miniopterus diversity has been grossly underestimated. Although 25 of 27 cyt‐ b and 23 of 25 nuclear gene tree lineages from the Afrotropics were strongly supported as monophyletic, a majority of deep nodes were poorly resolved in phylogenetic analyses. Long terminal branches subtending short backbone internodes in the phylogenetic analyses suggest a rapid radiation model of diversification. This hypothesis needs to be tested using more phylogenetically informative data.
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DOI: 10.1111/zsc.12388
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