Multiples lines of evidence unveil cryptic diversity in the Lophostoma brasiliense (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) complex

Abstract

Phenotypically similar species – often called cryptic species – represent a challenge for taxonomy and conservation biology because they are usually undetectable to scientists. To unravel these cryptic taxa, studies now employ data from different sources under an integrative approach. We present an assessment of the cryptic diversity of the Lophostoma brasiliense species complex (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) based on multiple lines of evidence (molecular, morphological, morphometric, and geographic data) and using molecular (ABGD, ASAP, GMYC, and bPTP) and phenotypic (distance-based approaches and Normal Mixture Model Analyses) species delimitation methods. Our analyses recognized two distinct lineages with clear allopatric distributions. One lineage corresponds to Lophostoma brasiliense with a cis-Andean distribution and the other to the formerly species Lophostoma nicaraguae with a trans-Andean distribution. The two lineages probably diverged from a vicariant speciation driven by the uplift of the Andes less than six million years ago. Our work also shows that the wide range of environmental conditions during the recent history of South America may have promoted restrictions to gene flow among the populations of Lophostoma brasiliense. Finally, we raised L. nicaraguae to species level clarifying the species limit and morphological characteristics of lineages, and we provide an emended diagnosis and comparisons between the two taxa. We highlight the need for multiple lines of evidence to solve the remaining taxonomic problems among the remaining species complexes in Lophostoma.

Key words:

• cryptic species
• neotropical bats
• Phyllostominae
• round-eared bat
• species delimitation
• systematics
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

We are especially thankful to museum curators for allowing access to the specimens under their care, as well as the loan of tissue samples. We particularly thank Adam Ferguson and Bruce Patterson (FMNH), Nancy Simmons and Neil Duncan (AMNH), Heath Garner (TTU), Jessica Light (TCWC), Ludmilla Aguiar (UnB), Marcelo Weksler and João Oliveira (UFRJ), Ciro Líbio (UFMA), Thiago Bernardi Vieira (UFPA), Leonora Pires Costa and Monique Nascimento (UFES), Fernando Cervantes, Mariana Figueroa, and Viridiana Marcos (CNMA), Sergio Guillermo Pérez (USAC), and Octavio Saldaña from Programa para la Conservación de los Murciélagos de Nicaragua (PCMN). We would like to thank Juan Díaz-Nieto and Juan Martinez-Ceron (Universidad EAFIT) for kindly sharing their sequences with us, as well as Valéria Tavares, Roberto Leonan Morim Novaes, and Tiago Carvalho for valuable comments on a previous version of this manuscript. Finally, we thank Guilherme Siniciato Terra Garbino, Henrique Rabello, Yuri Aguirre, Jonathan Delmer, Marco Tschapka, Milton Salazar-Saavedra, and Daniel Hargreaves for allowing us to use photographs that were useful in showing the geographic variation of the species. Also, authors thank Angie P. Penagos for her comments and help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the author(s).

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article can be accessed here: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2022.2110172.

Associate Editor: Dr David Gower

Additional information

Funding

This study was partly financed by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001. DAE and FMB were supported by CAPES fellowships and MJRP was supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) with a productivity grant.