Researchers discovered significant genetic diversity among leaf-nosed bats in the Solomon Islands, revealing that bats of similar sizes across different islands are genetically distinct species. This finding challenges previous morphological classifications and has implications for conservation and the understanding of evolutionary processes. Credit: SciTechDaily.com
Islands in the Vona Vona Lagoon of the New Georgia Group, Solomon Islands. This island group hosts four species of Hipposideros bats, including the two featured in the study of convergent evolution across the archipelago. Credit: RG Moyleof bats they collected from the field , the team found the large and extra large bat species weren’t actually closely related.
“All the large ones from different islands all clustered together in their measurements,” Moyle said. “It’s not just that the earlier biologists made a mistake. They looked at them and said, ‘Oh, yeah, they’re the same.’ And they’re actually not. We measured them, and they’re all clustered together, though they’re different species. We verified — sort of — that earlier morphological work.”
“Body size had misled the taxonomy,” DeRadd said. “It turns out every island’s population of extra-large bats is basically genetically unique and deserving of conservation. Understanding that is really helpful. There are issues with deforestation. If we don’t know whether these populations are unique, it’s hard to know whether we should be putting effort into conserving them.”
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