Review of genetic diversification of bats in the Caribbean and biogeographic relationships to Neotropical species based on DNA barcodes

DNA barcoding is helping in discovering high levels of cryptic species and an underestimation of biodiversity in many groups of organisms. Although mammals are arguably the most studied and one of the least speciose taxonomic classes, the rate of species discovery is increasing and biased for small mammals on islands. An earlier study found bats in the Caribbean as a taxonomic and geographic deficiency in the International Barcode of Life initiative to establish a genetic reference database to enable specimen identification to species. Recent surveys in Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Martinique have documented and barcoded half of the 58 bat species known from the Caribbean. I analyze all available barcode data of Caribbean bats to investigate biogeography and cryptic species in the Neotropical region. Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA gene cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 results in a phylogenetic tree with all but one species as well-supported and reciprocally monophyletic. With a broader sampling across the Neotropics, there are also divergent lineages that exhibit biogeographic structuring: (i) a phylogenetic split between northern and southern Dominican Republic in three species, (ii) two taxa with cryptic species associated with higher degree of island endemism, (iii) populations of two widely distributed species with deep divergence between the Caribbean and North and Central America, and (iv) one species in the Caribbean with affinities to taxa in South America.