Phylogeography of Lonchorhina aurita (Phyllostomidae) from coastal Brazilian Atlantic Forest
Ramira Lopes, SilviaDavid Ditchfield, Albert
Phylogeography is defined as the study of principles and process governing geographical distributions of genealogical lineages. Similar phylogeographic patterns may be shared among different species that inhabit same region and result from common historical events that affected these species in a similar way. Low levels of sequence divergence are found within species of bats. The ability to fly might result in a higher level of gene flow among populations for both bats and birds than that found in small mammals. The objective of this study was to describe and analyze the phylogeography structure of Lonchorhina aurita populations from the Brazilian coastal fragments of Atlantic rain forest. We used liver tissues from L. aurita to extract DNA. We then amplified the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b with PCR and performed RFLP on these amplified mitochondrial DNA fragments. Seven restriction endonucleases were used. We identified four haplotypes. The RFLP results were used in a phylogenetic analysis that resulted in a single most parsimonious tree. These haplotypes were distributed in two clades, one for southeastern and other for northeastern portions of Brazilian Atlantic forest. The phylogeographic structure found for L. aurita confirm the hypothesis that bats in subfamily Phyllostominae might have a strong geographical structure when compared with other bats. Given a preference