Dispersal out of Wallacea spurs diversification of Pteropus flying foxes, the world’s largest bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera)

Abstract

Aim Islands provide opportunities for isolation and speciation. Many landmasses in the Indo‐Australian Archipelago (IAA) are oceanic islands, and founder‐event speciation is expected to be the predominant form of speciation of volant taxa on these islands. We studied the biogeographic history of flying foxes, a group with many endemic species and a predilection for islands, to test this hypothesis and infer the biogeographic origin of the group. Location Australasia, Indo‐Australian Archipelago, Madagascar, Pacific Islands. Taxon Pteropus (Pteropodidae). Methods To infer the biogeographic history of Pteropus, we sequenced up to 6,169 bp of genetic data from 10 markers and reconstructed a multilocus species tree of 34 currently recognized Pteropus species and subspecies with three Acerodon outgroups using BEAST and subsequently estimated ancestral areas using models implemented in BioGeoBEARS. Results Species‐level resolution was occasionally low because of slow rates of molecular evolution and/or recent divergences. Older divergences, however, were more strongly supported and allow the evolutionary history of the group to be inferred. The genus diverged in Wallacea from its common ancestor with Acerodon; founder‐event speciation out of Wallacea was a common inference. Pteropus species in Micronesia and the western Indian Ocean were also inferred to result from founder‐event speciation. Main conclusions Dispersal between regions of the IAA and the islands found therein fostered diversification of Pteropus throughout the IAA and beyond. Dispersal in Pteropus is far higher than in most other volant taxa studied to date, highlighting the importance of inter‐island movement in the biogeographic history of this large clade of large bats.

Detection of Tioman Virus in Pteropus vampyrus Near Flores, Indonesia

“…Such surveys are especially critical in understudied tropical regions with potentially high levels of human-bat contact, such as insular Southeast Asia. To better understand viral diversity in flying foxes across the Indonesian archipelago, we used Illumina sequencing to screen tissue samples collected for a project aimed at understanding the molecular phylogeography of Pteropus [ 22 ], in addition to testing both fecal samples and tissues with a family-specific paramyxovirus PCR.…”

The Critical Importance of Old World Fruit Bats for Healthy Ecosystems and Economies

“…Given the depauperate frugivore and pollinator communities on islands, pteropodid bats are likely to play dominant, keystone roles within these systems wherever their populations have not been decimated by hunting or pest control (Cox et al, 1991). The high Pteropus diversity across islands and probable origin of the genus from the islands of Wallacea (Tsang et al, 2020) suggest a long evolutionary history in island ecosystems, which could be reflected in the ecological roles they perform there.…”

Review- Indonesian Flying Foxes: Research and Conservation Status Update

“…Citations Genus Pteropus P. alecto (Webb and Tidemann, 1995;Loughland, 1998;Palmer and Woinarski, 1999;Vardon and Tidemann, 2000;Palmer et al, 2000;Vardon et al, 2001;Markus, 2002;Markus and Blackshaw, 2002;Helgen, 2004;Markus and Hall, 2004;Fox, 2006;Phillips et al, 2007;Saroyo, 2011;Maryanto et al, 2011;Roberts et al, 2012;Sheherazade and Tsang, 2015;Neaves et al, 2018;Sheherazade et al, 2019;Tsang et al, 2019) P. aruensis (Lee et al, 2017) P. caniceps (Flannery, 1995;Tsang et al, 2019) P. chrysoproctus (Flannery, 1995;Tsang et al, 2015Tsang et al, , 2019Tsang, 2016a) P. conspicillatus (Webb and Tidemann, 1995;Fox, 2006;Parsons et al, 2006Parsons et al, , 2010Fox et al, 2008Fox et al, , 2012Shilton et al, 2008;Almeida et al, 2014;Tait et al, 2014;Neaves et al, 2018;Westcott et al, 2018;Tsang et al, 2019) P. hypomelanus (Flannery, 1995;Jones and Kunz, 2000;Bastian Jr. et al, 2002;…”