The family Rhinopomatidae comprises six species of mouse‐tailed bats within the genus Rhinopoma , inhabiting arid regions of the Old World from western Africa to Myanmar. While their phylogenetic relationships have been explored through morphology and molecular analyses, many populations still remain insufficiently studied using molecular approaches. This study aims to analyse samples representing all species and populations w...

Aim More species‐rich communities are often assumed to contain more specialist species with narrower niches and smaller ranges. Stronger interspecific competition in species‐rich communities is thought to be a key mechanism explaining these patterns. Yet, the relationship between richness and specialisation has so far only been studied for a few taxa, and characterising the effects of interspecific competition on species distr...

Aim Species distribution models (SDMs) are powerful tools for assessing suitable habitats across large areas and at fine spatial resolution. Yet, the usefulness of SDMs for mapping species' realised distributions is often limited since data biases or missing information on dispersal barriers or biotic interactions hinder them from accurately delineating species' range limits. One way to overcome this limitation is to integrate...

The horseshoe bats of the Rhinolophus ferrumequinum group form a well‐defined lineage within the Afro‐Palaearctic clade of the genus Rhinolophus . The group currently comprises four species widely distributed across the Palaearctic and Afrotropic regions: R. bocharicus (Central Asia), R. clivosus (from northern Africa and the Levant through Arabian Peninsula and eastern Africa to southern Africa), R. ferrumequinum (from wester...

Aim Geographical variations in endotherm body size (e.g. Bergmann's rule/James's rule and Allen's rule) have long been tested. However, the patterns and causes of geographical variation in body size within bat species, especially within widespread hibernating species, are little known. Here, we evaluated the possible causes of geographical size variation patterns in the greater horseshoe bat ( Rhinolophus ferrumequinum ), a ba...

Aim The impact of Pleistocene climatic oscillations on tropical biomes is associated with changes in the extent of forest cover. Fruit bats have played a role in woodland dynamics via pollination and seed dispersal. We hypothesized that phylogeographic patterns of Rousettus on continental Africa and adjacent islands should show a signature of pluvial‐drought cycles, involving demographic expansions and contractions. Location A...

Integrative taxonomy aims to document biodiversity by incorporating all useful characters to increase confidence in hypotheses about phylogenetic relationships. In this study, we combine data obtained independently from morphology, two maternally inherited mt DNA genes and two biparentally inherited nu DNA genes to make phylogenetic and taxonomic hypotheses about the Palaearctic members of the bat genus E ptesicus ( V espertil...

Vallo, P., Benda, P., Červený, J. & Koubek, P. (2012). Conflicting mitochondrial and nuclear paraphyly in small‐sized West African house bats (Vespertilionidae). — Zoologica Scripta , 42 , 1–12. Hybridization between species may result in introgression of mitochondrial DNA from one species to another. Phylogenetic inference, therefore, may not recover true evolutionary relationships. In bats, there are only a few reported case...

Phylogeographical studies are typically based on haplotype data, occasionally on nuclear markers such as microsatellites, but rarely combine both. This is unfortunate because the use of markers with contrasting modes of inheritance and rates of evolution might provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of a species’ history. Here we present a detailed study of the phylogeography of the greater horseshoe bat, Rhino...

The distribution of genetic variability across a species’ range can provide valuable insights into colonization history. To assess the relative importance of European and Asian refugia in shaping current levels of genetic variation in the greater horseshoe bats, we applied a microsatellite‐based approach to data collected from 56 localities ranging from the UK to Japan. A decline in allelic richness from west Asia to the UK an...