Cryptic diversity of the bent-wing bat, Miniopterus schreibersii (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae), in Asia Minor

Furman A., Postawa T., Oztunc T., Coraman E.

BMC EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY, cilt.10, 2010 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 10
  • Basım Tarihi: 2010
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1186/1471-2148-10-121
  • Dergi Adı: BMC EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • İstanbul Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır

Özet

Background: Two or more species are cryptic, if they are morphologically similar, biologically distinct, and misclassified as a single species. Cryptic species complexes were recently discovered within many bat species and we suspect that the bent-wing bat, Miniopterus schreibersii, found in Europe, northern Africa, and Asia Minor, could also form such a complex. Populations of M. schreibersii decline in most of the European countries and the species is currently listed as Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List. Finding that M. schreibersii is not a single species, but a species complex, would have a considerable impact on its conservation strategies, as the abundance of each component taxon would be much smaller than the one estimated for the nominal species.