Molecular phylogenetics of slit-faced bats (Chiroptera: Nycteridae) reveal deeply divergent African lineages.

ABSTRACT: The bat family Nycteridae contains only the genus Nycteris, which comprises 13 currently recognized species from Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, one species from Madagascar, and two species restricted to Malaysia and Indonesia in South-East Asia. We investigated genetic variation, clade membership, and phylogenetic relationships in Nycteridae with broad sampling across Africa for most clades. We sequenced mitochondrial cytochrome b (cytb) and four independent nuclear introns (2,166 bp) from 253 individuals. Although our samples did not include all recognized species, we recovered at least 16 deeply divergent monophyletic lineages using independent mitochondrial and multilocus nuclear datasets in both gene tree and species tree analyses. Mean pairwise uncorrected gene

SUBMITTER: Demos TC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6919933 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature