More Publications On Mammals

Studies of evolution and biodiversity require a solid understanding of species systematics revealed by molecular phylogeny using genomic data. Large-scale genomic analyses nevertheless remain difficult due to limited access to samples and molecular resources, especially in countries from the Global South. To help overcome this limitation, ultra-conserved elements (UCEs) have been developed to generate large nuclear datasets and build more robust species phylogenies. However, UCE libraries target only nuclear regions, which limits the comparison with mitochondrial genes. A new study in Mammalian Biology co-authored by Assistant Curator of Mammals Anderson Feijó and colleagues from Hong Kong, Canada, Brazil, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee tests a new method (MitoFinder) to extract mitogenomic data from off-target fragments in UCE libraries for mammals. They applied this method to serotine bats (genus Eptesicus), a widely distributed group whose evolutionary history is still poorly understood. The results indicate that MitoFinder yielded accurate mitogenome data derived from UCE libraries and can provide a valuable resource for estimating mitochondrial phylogeny and detecting mito-nuclear discordances at no additional costs. And based on the new dataset, the team revealed a complex evolutionary history in serotine bats, including evidence of interspecific hybridization within and across subgenera. Additionally, by incorporating published and newly collected gene sequences, they generated the most taxa-complete phylogeny ever for Neotropical Eptesicus, significantly enriching its sequence archive. They also found strong evidence of cryptic diversity, with potentially new species from Peru, Uruguay, and Brazil. The next step will be to formally describe these new bat species.Understanding why some regions have higher biodiversity than others is a long-term goal in biogeography. Most studies have focused on forested areas while far less attention has been devoted to arid regions. A new study published in Current Zoology co-authored by Anderson and colleagues from China and France investigated the ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that explain present-day patterns of Gerbillinae diversity—a subfamily of arid-adapted rodents that include gerbils, jirds, and sand rats—in Eurasia and Africa. The team also explored the time and origin of this highly diverse subfamily. They found that the highest species richness of Gerbillinae is present along the coastal areas of northern Africa, particularly in Egypt and Libya, followed by the Sahara-Sahel region. Multiple ecological and evolutionary factors jointly determine the spatial pattern of Gerbillinae diversity, but evolutionary time, speciation rate, and habitat heterogeneity were the most important. Based on the available fossil record and range ancestral reconstruction, the team hypothesized that Gerbillinae likely originated in the Horn of Africa during the Middle Miocene, and then dispersed and diversified across arid regions in Africa and Eurasia, forming their current distribution pattern. The new study emphasizes the importance of integrating evolutionary and ecological approaches to better understand the mechanisms underlying large-scale species diversity patterns in arid regions.
June 7. 2024