Andriollo Tommy, Ashrafi Sohrab, Arlettaz Raphaël, Ruedi Manuel
Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology Natural History Museum of Geneva Geneva Switzerland.
Section of Biology, Faculty of Sciences University of Geneva Geneva Switzerland.
Ecol Evol. 2018 Dec 7;8(24):12841-12854. doi: 10.1002/ece3.4714. eCollection 2018 Dec.
Species are the basic units for measuring biodiversity and for comprehending biological interactions. Yet, their delineation is often contentious, especially in groups that are both diverse and phenotypically conservative. Three cryptic species of long-eared bats, , and , co-occur over extensive areas of Western Europe. The latter is a fairly recent discovery, questioning the overall diversity of the entire complex. Yet, high morphological and acoustic similarities compromise the reliable identification of long-eared bats in the field. We postulate that such extensive phenotypic overlap, along with the recurrent observation of morphologically intermediate individuals, may hide rampant interspecific hybridization. Based on a geographic sampling centered on areas of sympatry in the Alps and Corsica, we assessed the level of reproductive isolation of these three species with mitochondrial and nuclear markers, looking at both inter- and intraspecific genetic population structuring. No sign of hybridization was detected between these three species that appear well separated biologically. Genetic structuring of populations, however, reflected different species-specific responses to environmental connectivity, that is, to the presence of orographic or sea barriers. While the Alpine range and the Ligurian Sea coincided with sharp genetic discontinuities in and , the more ubiquitous showed no significant population structuration. There were clear phylogeographic discrepancies between microsatellite and mitochondrial markers at the intraspecific level, however, which challenges the reliance on simple barcoding approaches for the delineation of sound conservation units.
物种是衡量生物多样性和理解生物相互作用的基本单位。然而，它们的划分往往存在争议，尤其是在那些既多样又表型保守的类群中。三种隐存的长耳蝠物种，即[物种名称1]、[物种名称2]和[物种名称3]，在西欧的大片区域共同出现。后者是一个相当新的发现，这对整个[长耳蝠所属类群名称]复合体的总体多样性提出了质疑。然而，高度的形态和声学相似性使得在野外可靠识别长耳蝠变得困难。我们推测，这种广泛的表型重叠，以及对形态学上中间型个体的反复观察，可能掩盖了普遍存在的种间杂交现象。基于以阿尔卑斯山和科西嘉岛的同域分布区域为中心的地理采样，我们使用线粒体和核标记评估了这三种[长耳蝠物种名称]的生殖隔离水平，同时观察了种间和种内的遗传种群结构。在这三个在生物学上似乎分隔良好的物种之间未检测到杂交迹象。然而，种群的遗传结构反映了不同物种对环境连通性的特定反应，即对地形或海洋屏障存在与否的反应。虽然阿尔卑斯山脉和利古里亚海与[物种名称1]和[物种名称2]中明显的遗传不连续性相吻合，但分布更广泛的[物种名称3]没有明显的种群结构。然而，在种内水平上，微卫星和线粒体标记之间存在明显的系统地理学差异，这对依靠简单的条形码方法来划定合理的保护单元提出了挑战。
