Research On Molecular Phylogeography Of Three Rhinolophidae Bats

The family Rhinolophidae belongs to the suborder Microchiroptera, which includes two subfamilies, namely, Hipposiderinae and Rhinolophinae. Hipposideros armiger and Rhinolophus sinicus/Rhinolophus thomasi complex including respectively to the two subfamilies are widely distributed in China. Their distribution area is similar and located in the southern and southwestern China. In this study, we assessed phylogeography and genetic structure of H. armiger and R. sinicus/R. thomasi complex.The geographical patterns of the genetic structure of H. armiger in China were assessed by analyzing sequence variation in the mtDNA control region. Analysis of molecular variance revealed a very strong genetic structure among five regions in H. armiger. A NJ tree, haplotype network construction by TCS and MDS plots all showed significant geographic differentiation among five regions. The high genetic structure detected in H. armiger could be a consequence of poor dispersal ability, local adaptation, or marked female philopatry. The lack of genetic structure among three regions separated by the Gaoligong Range and the Qiongzhou Strait could be due to incomplete lineage sorting. Our estimated times of divergence for H. armiger populations suggested a relatively recent split. The S Yunnan population with the highest genetic diversity and the Hainan population with the lowest genetic diversity should be equally given priority for conservation. Although H. armiger has been shown to carry viruses implicated in human disease, we find little evidence for population mixing. We thus suggest minimizing disturbance to bats'roosting caves for minimizing the potential risk of virus transmission.Owing to their similarity in morphology between R. sinicus and R. thomasi, there are much controversy in regard to their taxonomic status. Biogeography can provide more insight into patterns and mechanisms of evolution, as well as into taxa, and be critical to conservation. We analyzed sequence variation in mtDNA control region of 465 bp to assess genetic diversity and demographic history of the complex. NJ, ML and MP trees indicated that significant geographical differentiation was found in the complex species from 4 regions (Southwest, East, West and S Yunnan). A high level of genetic diversity was observed within all regions and each region, reflecting a long evolutionary history of a large, stable population. The time of the most recent common ancestor for the complex species was estimated to be 254 700 years ago, suggesting that this complex is an old species. According to the divergence times and the phylogenetic relationship between the species, we speculated that the populations from the S Yunnan region might be cryptic species within the complex species. The earliest differentiation in the complex is estimated to be approximately 200 000 years ago between S Yunnan region and East region during the later Middle Pleistocene. Subsequently, differentiation has occurred between the West/Southwest group and East group and between the West/Southwest group and S Yunnan group. The estimated time since expansion for all the samples was about 135 600 years ago during the early Later Pleistocene. Our data indicated that those regions of"[S Yunnan] [Southwest] [West] [East]"should be regards as 4 MUs. We suggested that the protection should be implemented simultaneously due to their genetic uniqueness.Phylogenetic relationships between taxa are not necessarily reflected by morphological data due to widespread homoplasy and convergence. However, combining morphological and molecular data provides insights into the evolution of biological forms and into the potential factors involved. Here we focus on R. sinicus and R. thomasi with unclear taxonomic affinities. Traditional morphometric methods were difficult to separate them, whereas our Cyt b gene-based studies suggested that they were divided into three strongly supported subclades. We further used landmark-based geometric morphometrics methods to analyze the skull variability of 80 specimens belonging to this species complex. Patterns of size and shape delimitate three morphological groups that are congruent with the proposed taxonomic assignments based on molecular data, and therefore support the existence of cryptic species from the S Yunnan population.