Search results for "Plecotus austriacus"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
A New species of long-eared bat (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) from Sardinia (Italy)
2002
We describe a new species of long eared bat, genus Plecotus, from the island of Sardinia (Italy). The new species is clearly distinguishable from other European Plecotus species by its mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene (4.1–9.6 % sequence divergence) as well as by a unique combination of morphological characters such as brownish colour of dorsal pelage, a relatively large thumb and thumb claw, an almost cylindrical form of the penis and the characteristic shape of the baculum. The most important morphological diagnostic characters is a relatively long (≥18mm) and wide (≥6mm) tragus. The new species is currently known from three localities on Sardinia. In addition to the new species we discovered …
Multiple morphological characters needed for field identification of cryptic long‐eared bat species around the Swiss Alps
2010
The identification of cryptic species may significantly change our view about their distribution, abundance, ecology and therefore conservation status. In the European Alps, molecular studies have revealed the existence of three sibling species of plecotine bats Plecotus auritus, Plecotus austriacus and, very recently, Plecotus macrobullaris. Knowledge of the ecological niche partitioning of cryptic species is a requisite to develop sound conservation policies. Yet, this requests the development of unambiguous identification methods easily applicable in the field. This study investigates the reliability of several morphological methods used for species recognition and proposes a new identif…
Conflicting molecular phylogenies of European long-eared bats (Plecotus) can be explained by cryptic diversity
2002
Abstract Conflicting phylogenetic signals of two data sets that analyse different portions of the same molecule are unexpected and require an explanation. In the present paper we test whether (i) differential evolution of two mitochondrial genes or (ii) cryptic diversity can better explain conflicting results of two recently published molecular phylogenies on the same set of species of long-eared bats (genus Plecotus). We sequenced 1714 bp of three mitochondrial regions (16S, ND1, and D-loop) of 35 Plecotus populations from 10 European countries. A likelihood ratio test revealed congruent phylogenetic signals of the three data partitions. Our phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that the exis…