Análise citogenética comparativa em espécies de morcegos da subfamília phyllostominae (chiroptera-phyllostomidae) por citogenética clássica e hibridização in situ Flourescente (fish)

Abstract

Bats are a highly distributed and diversified group.The diversity of feeding habits makes the Order Chiroptera one of the highest successes among mammals, being very important, because of these habits, on the control of insects, on pollination, and on dispersion of seeds of many vegetables. The family Phyllostomidae is the third bigger family on number of species into the Order Chiroptera. Among the neotropical ones, this family is the most numerous, being found in the rainforests of South America, especially in the Amazon region, where there is the highest diversity of bats in the World. In the present work it was analyzed cytogenetically a sample of three species of the subfamily Phyllostominae: Chrotopterus auritus, Trachops cirrhosus and Vampyrum spectrum collected in the Pará and Amazon states. The chromosomal data obtained for Chrotopterus auritus (2n = 28 e NF = 52) and Trachops cirrhosus (2n = 30, FN = 56) are in agreement with the ones described in the literature. For Vampyrum spectrum (2n=30 NF=56) we described for the fist time the banding patterns and FISH (Fluorescent in situ Hybridization). The C-banding technique demonstrated a pericentric pattern of distribution of the centromeric heterochromatin in the three species here studied. The FISH with telomeric DNA probes shown only distal hybridizations in all chromosomes of the three species, while the 18S rDNA proble confirmed the location of the NOR observed by Ag-NOR staining, in the long arm of pair 2 Chrotopterus auritus, in the pair 11 of Trachops cirrhosus and in the long arm of the pair 1 of Vampyrum spectrum. The comparative analysis among the species suggests an extensive chromosomal differentiation, with few chromosome pairs being shared among the three genera. Five whole chromosome pairs were conserved without any rearrangement after the divergence of the three lineages. The comparison among the species shows that C. auritus and V. spectrum have more shared pairs between them than with T. cirrhosus. Our results support the phylogenetic association between C. auritus and V. spectrum and suggest the association of T. cirrhosus with the genus Phyllostomus.