First insights towards the population genetic structure and the phylogeographic status of the Mehely’s horseshoe bat Rhinolophus mehelyi (Chiroptera: Rhinolophidae) in Iran inferred from mitochondrial genes

Publication date: Available online 7 November 2019Source: Mammalian BiologyAuthor(s): Nargess Najafi, Mozafar Sharifi, Vahid AkmaliAbstractMehely’s horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus mehelyi Matschie 1901, is a medium-sized rhinolophid with a discontinuous distribution from North Africa and southern Europe through Asia Minor, Anatolia, to Transcaucasia and Iran. Here, we present a detailed study of the phylogeography and population genetics of this species using 745 bp of the mitochondrial cytochrome b and 522 bp of the mitochondrial D-loop genes in 46 bats in eight localities in western and southwesternIran. Based on the mtDNA sequences, we found a low degree of genetic diversity in the Iranian populations of R. mehelyi (π = 0.0032 for Cytb and π = 0.0064 for D-loop gene), that show a close relationship among the haplotypes. With a K2P genetic distance (0.38% - 0.97% on D-loop and 0.22% - 0.69% on Cytb), and the phylogenetic reconstruction in the Eurasia lineage two major clades are introduced. Here, the phylogenetic trees and statistical parsimony network showed all Iranian samples were grouped in the same clade, but southern Europe and North Africa samples belonged to another clade. The average genetic divergence between reciprocally monophyletic clade of the R. mehelyi group in Iran and southern Europe and North Africa were 0.69% for Cytb and 4.09 % for D-Loop respectively. The analysis of population structure suggests an incongruent pattern of genetic differentiation...
Source: Mammalian Biology - Category: Biology Source Type: research