Miniopterus schreibersii is a cave-dwelling bat species with a wide distribution in the western Palearctic spanning southern and central Europe, North Africa, Anatolia, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. We investigated the social structure and its effects on the genetic makeup of this species, using 10 nuclear microsatellite markers and a partial fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. Samples were examined from the species' entire circum-Mediterranean range. Local structuring that was previously detected among populations of M. schreibersii using mitochondrial markers was not observed for microsatellite markers, indicating male-biased dispersal for the species. Some support was found for postglacial expansions in Europe, with Anatolia potentially acting as the primary refugium during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). However, support for this hypothesis is not as strong as that previously detected using mitochondrial DNA markers. This is likely due to the diminishing effect of male-mediated dispersal, replenishing the nuclear diversity faster than the mitochondrial diversity in regions that are relatively far from the glacial refugia.
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21 October 2019
A continent-scale study of the social structure and phylogeography of the bent-wing bat, Miniopterus schreibersii (Mammalia: Chiroptera), using new microsatellite data
Kanat Gürün,
Andrzej Furman,
Javier Juste,
Maria J. Ramos Pereira,
Jorge M. Palmeirim,
Sebastien J. Puechmaille,
Pavel Hulva,
Primoz Presetnik,
Daniela Hamidovic,
Carlos Ibáñez,
Ahmet Karataş,
Benjamin Allegrini,
Panagiotis Georgiakakis,
Dino Scaravelli,
Marcel Uhrin,
Haris Nicolaou,
Mounir R. Abi-Said,
Zoltan L. Nagy,
Suren Gazaryan,
Raşit Bilgin
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Journal of Mammalogy
Vol. 100 • No. 6
December 2019
Vol. 100 • No. 6
December 2019
cytonuclear discordance
Miniopteridae
philopatry
postglacial expansions
sex-biased dispersal
social structure
Vespertilionidae
