Title

Nuclear Gene Sequences Confirm an Ancient Link Between New Zealand's Short-Tailed Bat and South American Noctilionoid Bats

Authors

Emma C. Teeling, National Cancer Institute at Frederick
Ole Madsen, University of Nijmegen - Netherlands
William J. Murphy, National Cancer Institute at Frederick
Mark S. Springer, University of California - Riverside
Stephen J. O'Brien, National Cancer Institute at FrederickFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2003

Publication Title

Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution

Keywords

New Zealand, Gondwanaland, Short-tailed bat, Chiroptera, Phylogeny, Molecular dating

ISSN

1055-7903

Volume

28

Issue/No.

2

First Page

308

Last Page

319

Abstract

Molecular and morphological hypotheses disagree on the phylogenetic position of New Zealand’s short-tailed bat Mystacina tuberculata. Most morphological analyses place Mystacina in the superfamily Vespertilionoidea, whereas molecular studies unite Mystacina with the Neotropical noctilionoids and imply a shared Gondwanan history. To date, competing hypotheses for the placement of Mystacina have not been addressed with a large concatenation of nuclear protein sequences. We investigated this problem using 7.1 kb of nuclear sequence data that included segments from five nuclear protein-coding genes for representatives of 14 bat families and six laurasiatherian outgroups. We employed the Thorne/Kishino method of molecular dating, allowing for simultaneous constraints from the fossil record and varying rates of molecular evolution on different branches on the phylogenetic tree, to estimate basal divergence times within key chiropteran clades. Maximum likelihood, minimum evolution, maximum parsimony, and Bayesian posterior probabilities all provide robust support for the association of Mystacina with the South American noctilionoids. The basal divergence within Chiroptera was estimated at 67 mya and the mystacinid/noctilionoid split was calculated at 47 mya. Although the mystacinid lineage is too young to have originated in New Zealand before it split from the other Gondwanan landmasses (80 mya), the exact geographic origin of these lineages is still uncertain and will not be answered until more fossils are found. It is most probable that Mystacina dispersed from Australia to New Zealand while other noctilionoid bats either remained in or dispersed to South America.

Comments

©2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

Additional Comments

National Cancer Institute contract #: N01-CO-124000; NSF grant #: DEB9903810

NSUWorks Citation

Teeling, Emma C.; Ole Madsen; William J. Murphy; Mark S. Springer; and Stephen J. O'Brien. 2003. "Nuclear Gene Sequences Confirm an Ancient Link Between New Zealand's Short-Tailed Bat and South American Noctilionoid Bats." Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 28, (2): 308-319. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_bio_facarticles/582

ORCID ID

0000-0001-7353-8301

ResearcherID

N-1726-2015