Molecular systematics of bonneted bats (Molossidae: Eumops) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences

Abstract

Previous understanding of the relationships among the species of bats in the genus Eumops has been based on phenetic and cladistic analyses of morphological data. The objective of this study was to construct a phylogeny of the bats within the genus Eumops using DNA sequence data from 2 mitochondrial genes (cytochrome b and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase subunit 1) and 1 nuclear locus (β-fibrinogen intron 7) for members of Eumops and outgroups from the family Molossidae. Data for each locus were analyzed separately using maximum-likelihood and Bayesian methods then were combined for complete data analyses using Bayesian Inference and Bayesian concordance analysis on a total of 2715 base pairs. Our results conflicted with some of the relationships proposed in previous morphological studies. Minor disagreements existed between the individual mitochondrial and nuclear data sets. However, the monophyly of the genus was significantly supported in all of the analyses.