Publication details
Phylogeny of vespertilionid bats with respect to the white-nose syndrome
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2012 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Description | Anotace anglicky The white-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging infectious disease of hibernating bats, which is caused by a microscopic fungus Geomyces destructans. In North America, seven species were diagnosed with WNS and several of them suffer mass mortality following the disease outbreak. In Europe, eight species are known to be infected with geomycosis and one was diagnosed with WNS. No mass mortality is associated with WNS in Europe. To study phylogenetic relationships of bat species prone to WNS, we reconstructed a phylogeny of 252 species of family Vespertilionidae from a concatenated dataset including 13 mitochondrial and nuclear loci. The maximum likelihood phylogeny of this family resolved multiple enigmatic relationships between genera and at the species level. The bat species affected with WNS are polyphyletic and they belong to distantly related genera Myotis, Eptesicus and Perimyotis. Within Myotis, species with confirmed WNS and geomycosis are found across the Myotis clade. The results provide a comprehensive phylogeny of family Vespertilionidae, that may provide information about species pairs that could become affected with white-nose syndrome in the future. |