Islands in the stream: Distribution of Myotis attenboroughi (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) in Grenada and mainland South America illuminates the evolutionary history of Caribbean Myotis

By

Novaes, Roberto Leonan
Cláudio, Vinícius C. (Vinícius Cardoso)
Bertocchi, Natasha A.
Abreu-Júnior, Edson Fiedler de
Wilson, Don E.
Maldonado, Jesús E.
Moratelli, Ricardo

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025-4-25

Original Publication

Evolutionary systematics

Volume

9

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

107--122

Subjects

Barbados , Caribbean biogeography , Historical DNA , Myotis nyctor , Suriname , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Hamburg Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak) 2017-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.9.146107

 

Abstract

Myotis attenboroughi was recently described based on specimens from Tobago Island and considered an endemic species until now. Based on morphological and molecular data, we extended its occurrence to Grenada and Suriname. The presence of M. attenboroughi in Grenada, Tobago and mainland South America can be explained by the intermittent connections between these islands and the continent during the Plio-Pleistocene glaciations. However, our analyses recovered an Myotis individual from Grenada phylogenetically related to Myotis nyctor from Barbados, although it is morphologically like the other specimens of M. attenboroughi, revealing a surprising incongruence between genotype and phenotype. Barbados is a geologically recent island and historically unconnected with other Caribbean islands or with South America. We hypothesized that the invasion of the M. nyctor lineage from Barbados to Grenada was the result of an extreme overwater dispersal, perhaps driven by wind streams during tropical storms. Subsequently, introgression of lineages may have occurred through hybridization, which can explain the discordance between the phenotype (like M. attenboroughi) and the genotype (like M. nyctor) of this specimen. Additional comments on the formation of the Caribbean Myotis assemblage are presented from the perspective of new evolutionary discoveries for this genus.