Rivera Damien C, Upham Nathan S
bioRxiv. 2025 Sep 8:2025.09.04.674278. doi: 10.1101/2025.09.04.674278.
The Madrean Sky Island Archipelago is a system of 54 mountains with isolated woodland habitat above 1,600 meters, primarily in the Sonoran Desert. These mountains harbor a wide variety of native small mammals spanning 11 families of bats, rodents and shrews. Improved understanding of Madrean Sky Island biodiversity will potentially advance studies of biogeography, phylogenetic relationships, host-symbiont interactions, and processes of community assembly in this ecoregion. However, which species are found in each sky island and how their populations are genetically related remain open questions. To establish the current knowledge baseline, we used voucher specimen geocoordinates and elevations to summarize the extent and timing of past collecting efforts for small mammals in woodland habitats across the Madrean Sky Islands. In total, 97 species of small mammals (39 bats, 54 rodents, 4 shrews) from 9,541 specimens were collected from 1884 to 2023. Of these historical specimens, 79% come from five sky islands (Chiricahuas, Pinaleños, Huachucas, Animas, and Santa Catalinas) and only 25 sky islands in the Madrean system have any recorded specimens. Mexico's 25 sky islands are mostly unsampled (only the San Luis, Sierra dos Ajos, and Sierra La Mariquita have any specimens) and several of Arizona's larger sky islands have fewer than 40 specimens (Galiuros, Canelo Hills, Santa Teresas, Mules, and Dragoons). A large majority of small mammal specimens (87%) were collected prior to 1980, meaning they were collected without DNA/RNA preservation as a priority. This distributional summary is the current basis for all derived biodiversity knowledge of Madrean Sky Island small mammals, illustrating clear gaps regarding most species of woodland-dwelling bats, rodents, and shrews. This work lays the foundation for future fieldwork and voucher specimen preservation in the Madrean Sky Islands, especially from undersampled mountains where biodiversity assumptions are unconfirmed.
马德雷天空岛群岛是一个由54座山脉组成的系统，这些山脉海拔1600米以上，拥有孤立的林地栖息地，主要位于索诺兰沙漠。这些山脉栖息着各种各样的本地小型哺乳动物，涵盖11个蝙蝠、啮齿动物和鼩鼱科。更好地了解马德雷天空岛的生物多样性可能会推动对该生态区域生物地理学、系统发育关系、宿主-共生体相互作用以及群落组装过程的研究。然而，每个天空岛中发现了哪些物种以及它们的种群在基因上如何关联仍然是悬而未决的问题。为了建立当前的知识基线，我们使用凭证标本的地理坐标和海拔高度来总结过去在马德雷天空岛林地栖息地对小型哺乳动物的采集工作的范围和时间。从1884年到2023年，共采集了9541份标本中的97种小型哺乳动物（39种蝙蝠、54种啮齿动物、4种鼩鼱）。在这些历史标本中，79%来自五个天空岛（奇里卡瓦山脉、皮纳莱诺山脉、瓦丘卡山脉、阿尼马斯山脉和圣卡塔利娜山脉），而马德雷系统中只有25个天空岛有任何记录标本。墨西哥的25个天空岛大多未被采样（只有圣路易斯、塞拉多斯阿霍斯和塞拉马里基塔有标本），亚利桑那州的几个较大的天空岛标本不到40份（加柳罗斯山脉、卡内洛山、圣特雷莎山脉,骡子山和龙骑兵山）。绝大多数小型哺乳动物标本（87%）是在1980年之前采集的，这意味着它们在采集时没有将DNA/RNA保存作为优先事项。这一分布总结是目前所有关于马德雷天空岛小型哺乳动物衍生生物多样性知识的基础，说明了在大多数林地栖息的蝙蝠、啮齿动物和鼩鼱物种方面存在明显差距。这项工作为马德雷天空岛未来的实地考察和凭证标本保存奠定了基础，特别是来自生物多样性假设未经证实的采样不足的山脉。
