Molecular Phylogenetics of the Chiropteran Family Vespertilionidae

Abstract

Limited information from existing data sets and the tremendous amount of diversity in number and kind within the chiropteran family Vespertilionidae (about one-third of all bat species) have hampered efforts to provide adequate assessments of long-standing genealogic hypotheses (e.g., monophyly of the family and of the five subfamilies). We generated approximately 2.6 kilobase pairs of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence ecompassing three adjacent genes (12S rRNA, tRNAVal, 16S rRNA) for 120 vespertilionids representing 110 species, 37 of 44 genera, and all subfamilies. We assessed monophyly of Vespertilionidae in initial analyses of 171 taxa including representatives of all bat families (except the monotypic Craseonycteridae), and assessed lower-level relationships by analysis of several truncated taxon sets. Phylogenetic analysis of ribosomal gene sequences provides well-supported resolution for vespertilionid relationships across taxonomic levels. Furthermore, the resolution is not heavily burdened by al...