Journal article
Genetic differentiation among populations of a specialist fishing bat suggests lack of suitable habitat connectivity
Susan Campbell, Patrick-Jean Guay, Paul John Mitrovski, Raoul Mulder
Biological Conservation | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2009
Abstract
Specialist species face higher extinction risks as a result of smaller, isolated populations with reduced gene flow. The large-footed myotis (Myotis macropus) is the only microbat in Australia specialised for foraging directly over water surfaces. Such highly specialised feeding ecology restricts the distribution of M. macropus to coastal regions and inland waterways. Using five novel and two existing nuclear microsatellite markers, we investigated genetic diversity within and among five M. macropus populations in Victoria. Significant genetic differentiation was detected between all populations. F values between populations ranged from 0.02 to 0.24. We suggest that the movement of M. macro..
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Funding Acknowledgements
All research was carried out under the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Science Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee # 02008, the Department of Environment and Heritage ethics # 26/2002, permit # Z24591 1, licence # 102 and Parks Victoria Research Permit # 1000 1741. Funding was generously provided by the Holsworth Wildlife Research Endowment, Australian Geographic Society, River Basin Management Society, the Norman Wettenhall Foundation, National Parks and Wildlife South Australia, the Department of Zoology University of Melbourne, Mrs. Bronwyn Wood and Alan & Helen Campbell. Many thanks to the many spirited volunteers that assisted with field work, in particular, Ms. Alison Meller. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable input into an earlier version of this manuscript.