Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Ecomorph Evolution in Myotis (Vespertilionidae, Chiroptera)

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Mammalian Evolution Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The genus Myotis is unique among mammals in its high taxonomic diversity and global distribution. Their phylogenetic relationships reflect biogeographic affinities rather than phenotypes. Myotis diverged from other bats in the early Miocene, with a subsequent split between Old and New World lineages about 19 million years ago. Similar ecomorphs (‘Leuconoe’ [near-water hunters], ‘Myotis’ [gleaners], ‘Selysius’ [aerial hawkers]) emerged independently in different lineages of Myotis. We retrieved the probable ancestral ecomorph for each lineage. Phenetic diversity was estimated from the analysis of body and skull traits. It seems that evolution of Myotis fluctuated between ‘Leuconoe’, ‘Selysius’, and larger ‘Myotis’.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Altenbach JS (1989) Prey capture by the fishing bats Noctilio leporinus and Myotis vivesi. J Mammal 70:421–424

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barr WA, Scott RS (2014) Phylogenetic comparative methods complement discriminant function analysis in ecomorphology. Am J Phys Anthropol 153:663–674. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22462

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Blood BR, McFarlane DA (1988) Notes on some bats from northern Thailand, with comments on the subgeneric status of Myotis altarium. Z Säugetierk 53:276–280

    Google Scholar 

  • Borisenko AV, Kruskop SV, Ivanova NV (2008) A new mouse-eared bat (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from Vietnam. Russ J Theriol 7:57–69

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caceres MC, Barclay RMR (2000) Myotis septentrionalis. Mammal Species 634:1–4. doi:10.1644/1545-1410(2000)634<0001:MS>2.0.CO;2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell S (2011) Ecological specialisation and conservation of Australia’s large-footed Myotis: a review of trawling bat behaviour. In: Law B, Eby P, Lunney D, Lumsden L (eds) The Biology and Conservation of Australasian Bats. Royal Zoological Society of NSW, Mosman, pp 72–85

  • Carroll RL (1988) Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. W.H. Freeman and Company, New York

  • R Core Team (2015) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Austria, Vienna. https://www.r-project.org. Accessed 5 July 2016

    Google Scholar 

  • Dzeverin I, Ghazali M (2010) Evolutionary mechanisms affecting the multivariate divergence in some Myotis species (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae). Evol Biol 37:100–112. doi:10.1007/s11692-010-9086-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dzeverin II (1998) A unidimensional model of phenetic diversity of the Palearctic Myotis species. Biol Bull 25:206–212

    Google Scholar 

  • Eiting TP, Gunnell GF (2009) Global completeness of the bat fossil record. J Mammal Evol 16:151–173. doi:10.1007/s10914-009-9118-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evin A, Lecoq V, Durand M-O, Tillon L, Pons J-M (2009) A new species for the French bat list: Myotis escalerai (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Mammalia 73:142–144. doi:10.1515/MAMM.2009.030

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fenton MB, Bogdanowicz W (2002) Relationships between external morphology and foraging behaviour: bats in the genus Myotis. Can J Zool 80:1004–1013. doi:10.1139/z02-083

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Findley JS (1972) Phenetic relationships among bats of the genus Myotis. Syst Biol 21:31–52. doi:10.1093/sysbio/21.1.31

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freeman PW (1981) Correspondence of food habits and morphology in insectivorous bats. J Mammal 62:166. doi:10.2307/1380489

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freeman PW (2000) Macroevolution in Microchiroptera: recoupling morphology and ecology with phylogeny. Evol Ecol Res 2:317–335

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelman A, Carlin JB, Stern HS, Rubin DB (2004) Bayesian Data Analysis, 2nd edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton

    Google Scholar 

  • Ghazali M, Dzeverin I (2013) Correlations between hardness of food and craniodental traits in nine Myotis species (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae). Vestn Zool 47:67–76

    Google Scholar 

  • Godawa Stormark J (1998) Phenetic analysis of Old World Myotis (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) based on dental characters. Acta Theriol (Warsz) 43:1–11

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gunnell GF, Simmons NB (2005) Fossil evidence and the origin of bats. J Mammal Evol 12:209–246. doi:10.1007/s10914-005-6945-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harmon LJ, Weir JT, Brock CD, Glor RE, Challenger W (2008) GEIGER: investigating evolutionary radiations. Bioinformatics 24:129–131. doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btm538

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hastie T, Tibshirani R, Leisch F, Hornik K, Ripley BD (2015) Mda: mixture and flexible discriminant analysis. R package version 0.4–8. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=mda. Accessed 5 July 2016

  • Hoofer SR, Van Den Bussche RA (2003) Molecular phylogenetics of the chiropteran family Vespertilionidae. Acta Chiropterologica 5:1–63. doi:10.3161/001.005.s101

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hu K-L, Yang J, Tan L-J, Zhang L-B (2012) Dietary differences and niche partitioning in three sympatric Myotis species. Zool Res 33:177–181. doi:10.3724/SP.J.1141.2012.02177

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kawai K, Nikaido M, Harada M, Matsumura S, Lin L-K, Wu Y, Hasegawa M, Okada N (2003) The status of the Japanese and east Asian bats of the genus Myotis (Vespertilionidae) based on mitochondrial sequences. Mol Phylogenet Evol 28:297–307

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Koopman KF (1994) Chiroptera: Systematics. Walter De Gruyter, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Lack JB, Roehrs ZP, Stanley CE, Ruedi M, Van Den Bussche RA (2010) Molecular phylogenetics of Myotis indicate familial-level divergence for the genus Cistugo (Chiroptera). J Mammal 91:976–992. doi:10.1644/09-MAMM-A-192.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larsen RJ, Knapp MC, Genoways HH, Khan FAA, Larsen PA, Wilson DE, Baker RJ (2012) Genetic diversity of Neotropical Myotis (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) with an emphasis on South American species. PLoS ONE 7:e46578. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046578

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ma J, Jones G, Zhang S, Shen J, Metzner W, Zhang L, Liang B (2003) Dietary analysis confirms that Rickett’s big-footed bat (Myotis ricketti) is a piscivore. J Zool 261:245–248. doi: 10.1017/S095283690300414X

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maeda K, Matsumura S (1998) Two new species of vespertilionid bats, Myotis and Murina (Vespertilionidae: Chiroptera) from Yanbaru, Okinawa Island, Okinawa prefecture, Japan. Zool Sci 15:301–307. doi:10.2108/zsj.15.301

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Menu H (1985) Morphotypes dentaires actuels et fossiles des Chiroptères Vespertilioninés. 1-e partie: Étude des morphologies dentaires. Palaeovertebrata 15:71–128

    Google Scholar 

  • Menu H (1987) Morphotypes dentaires actuels et fossiles des chiroptères vespertilioninés. 2ème partie: implications systématiques et phylogéniques. Palaeovertebrata 17:77–150

    Google Scholar 

  • Miranda JMD, Bernardi IP, Sponchiado J, Passos FC (2013) The taxonomic status of Myotis levis levis and Myotis levis dinellii (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Zool Curitiba 30:513–518. doi:10.1590/S1984-46702013000500007

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moratelli R (2012) Myotis simus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Mammal Species 26–32. doi:10.1644/892.1

  • Moratelli R, Wilson DE (2013) Distribution and natural history of Myotis lavali (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae). J Mammal 94:650–656. doi: 10.1644/12-MAMM-A-257.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak RM (1994) Walker’s Bats of the World. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore

    Google Scholar 

  • Orme D, Freckleton R, Thomas G, Petzoldt T, Fritz S, Isaac N, Pearse W (2012) caper: Comparative Analyses of Phylogenetics and Evolution in R. R package version 0.5.2. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=caper. Accessed 5 July 2016

  • Revell LJ (2012) Phytools: an R package for phylogenetic comparative biology (and other things). Methods Ecol Evol 3:217–223. doi:10.1111/j.2041-210X.2011.00169.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruedi M, Csorba G, Lin L-K, Chou C-H (2015) Molecular phylogeny and morphological revision of Myotis bats (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from Taiwan and adjacent China. Zootaxa 3920:301–342. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3920.2.6.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ruedi M, Mayer F (2001) Molecular systematics of bats of the genus Myotis (Vespertilionidae) suggests deterministic ecomorphological convergences. Mol Phylogenet Evol 21:436–448. doi:10.1006/mpev.2001.1017

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ruedi M, Stadelmann B, Gager Y, Douzery EJP, Francis CM, Lin L-K, Guillén-Servent A, Cibois A (2013) Molecular phylogenetic reconstructions identify East Asia as the cradle for the evolution of the cosmopolitan genus Myotis (Mammalia, Chiroptera). Mol Phylogenet Evol 69:437–449. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.08.011

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Safi K, Kerth G (2004) A comparative analysis of specialization and extinction risk in temperate-zone bats. Conserv Biol 18:1293–1303. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2004.00155.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmitz L, Motani R (2011) Nocturnality in dinosaurs inferred from scleral ring and orbit morphology. Science 332:705–708. doi:10.1126/science.1200043

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sigé B, Menu H (1992) Un nouveau chiroptère vespertilionide de l’Oligocène d’Europe. Palaeovertebrata 22:45–48

    Google Scholar 

  • Simmons NB (2005) Order Chiroptera. In: Wilson DE, Reeder DM (eds) Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, 3rd edn. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp 312–529

    Google Scholar 

  • Slaughter BH (1970) Evolutionary trends of chiropteran dentitions. In: Slaughter BH, Walton DW (eds) About Bats: A Chiropteran Biology Symposium. Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, pp 51–84

  • Soetaert K (2014) Diagram: functions for visualising simple graphs (networks), plotting flow diagrams. R package version 1.6.2. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=diagram. Accessed 5 July 2016

  • Stadelmann B, Herrera LG, Arroyo-Cabrales J, Flores-Martínez JJ, May BP, Ruedi M (2004a) Molecular systematics of the fishing bat Myotis (Pizonyx) vivesi. J Mammal 85:133–139. doi:10.1644/1545-1542(2004)085<0133:MSOTFB>2.0.CO;2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stadelmann B, Jacobs DS, Schoeman C, Ruedi M (2004b) Phylogeny of African Myotis bats (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) inferred from cytochrome b sequences. Acta Chiropterologica 6:177–192. doi:10.3161/1508110042955504

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stadelmann B, Lin L-K, Kunz TH, Ruedi M (2007) Molecular phylogeny of New World Myotis (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) inferred from mitochondrial and nuclear DNA genes. Mol Phylogenet Evol 43:32–48. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2006.06.019

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tate GHH (1941) A review of the genus Myotis (Chiroptera) of Eurasia: with special reference to species occuring in the East Indies. Bull Am Mus Nat Hist 78:537–565

    Google Scholar 

  • von Helversen O, Heller K-G, Mayer F, Nemeth A, Volleth M, Gombkötö P (2001) Cryptic mammalian species: a new species of whiskered bat (Myotis alcathoe n. sp.) in Europe. Naturwissenschaften 88:217–223. doi:10.1007/s001140100225

  • Wolz I (1993) Das Beutespektrum der Bechsteinfledermaus Myotis bechsteini (Kuhl, 1818) ermittelt aus Kotanalysen. Myotis 31:27–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziegler R (2000) The bats (Chiroptera, Mammalia) from the late Oligocene fissure fillings Herrlingen 8 and Herrlingen 9 near Ulm (Baden-Württemberg). Senckenberg Lethaea 80:647–683. doi:10.1007/BF03043368

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ziegler R (2003) Bats (Chiroptera, Mammalia) from middle Miocene karstic fissure fillings of Petersbuch near Eichstätt, southern Franconian Alb (Bavaria). Geobios 36:447–490. doi:10.1016/S0016-6995(03)00043-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The following curators and collection staff provided access to specimens under their care: I.K. Rakhmatulina (Institute of Zoology of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan); A.L. Peracchi (Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); F. de C. Passos (Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil); M. de Vivo, J.G. Barros (Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil); G.I. Baranova, P.P. Strelkov (Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Science, Russia); E.I. Kozhurina (Tchernogolovka biological station of Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia); O.L. Rossolimo, I.Ya. Pavlinov, E.L. Yakhontov (Zoological Museum of Moscow University, Russia); N.M. Paskhina (Department of Vertebrate Zoology of Moscow University, Russia); L.S. Shevchenko (National Museum of Natural History of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine); L.M. Pisareva, Zh.V. Rozora (Zoological Museum of Kiev University, Ukraine); N.B. Simmons, E. Westwig (American Museum of Natural History, USA); K.M. Helgen, D. Lunde, L. Gordon (National Museum of Natural History, USA); J. Braun, M. Revelez (San Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, USA); R. Baker, and H. Garner (Museum of Texas Tech University, USA). Work on collecting morphometric data was partly supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development / Science Without Borders Program, Brazil (CNPq 202612/2011-2).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Bohdan Khmelnitsky str 15, Kyiv, 01601, Ukraine

    Maria Ghazali & Igor Dzeverin

  2. Campus Fiocruz da Mata Atlântica, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil

    Ricardo Moratelli

Authors
  1. Maria Ghazali
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ricardo Moratelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Igor Dzeverin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Maria Ghazali.

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(PDF 430 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ghazali, M., Moratelli, R. & Dzeverin, I. Ecomorph Evolution in Myotis (Vespertilionidae, Chiroptera). J Mammal Evol 24, 475–484 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-016-9351-z

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-016-9351-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation