Carlos Ibáñez

Estación Biológica de Doñana · Evolutionary Ecology

We describe a population of pipistrelle-like bats from Príncipe Island (Gulf of Guinea, Western Central Africa) as a new species based on the molecular and morphological characteristics of six specimens collected more than 30 years ago. The description of this new species was not possible until the traditionally entangled systematics of the whole p...

Four chigger mite species were collected from different bat hosts in several provinces of Spain. Leptotrombidium europaeum (Daniel & Brelih, 1959) and Ascoschoengastia latyshevi (Schluger, 1955) has been recorded for the first time on bats; Leptotrombidium russicum (Oudemans, 1902), A. latyshevi and Willmannium cavus moldaviensis Kudryashova, 1992...

Bats have evolved features unique amongst mammals, including flight, laryngeal echolocation, and certain species have been shown to have a unique immune response that may enable them to tolerate viruses such as SARS-CoVs, MERS-CoVs, Nipah, and Marburg viruses. Robust cellular models have yet to be developed for bats, hindering our ability to furthe...

Most current insect research techniques are ground-based and provide scarce information about flying insects in the planetary boundary layer (PBL), which remains a poorly studied ecological niche. To address this gap, we developed a new insect-sampling method consisting of a fixed-wing drone platform with net traps attached to the fuselage, a mobil...

Cryptic species that coexist in sympatry are likely to simultaneously experience strong competition and hybridization. The first phenomenon would lead to character displacement, whereas the second can potentially promote morphological similarity through adaptive introgression. The main goal of this work was to investigate the effect of introgressiv...

Aim: Comprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only available distributional information and play an increasing role in conservation assessments and macroeco...

Forests are key native habitats in temperate environments. While their structure and composition contribute to shaping local-scale community assembly, their role in driving larger-scale species distributions is understudied. We used detailed forest inventory data, an extensive dataset of occurrence records, and species distribution models integrate...

Targeted molecular methods such as conventional PCR (cPCR) and quantitative PCR (qPCR), combined with species-specific primers and probes, are widely applied for pest species detection. Besides, the potential of qPCR to quantify DNA in samples makes it an invaluable molecular tool to infer the predation levels on specific prey by analysing predator...

Cryptic species that coexist in sympatry are likely to simultaneously experience strong competition and hybridization. The first phenomenon would lead to character displacement, whereas the second can potentially promote morphological similarity through adaptive introgression. The main goal of this work was to investigate the effect of introgressiv...

Wind farms can bring problems for biodiversity, affecting Chiroptera in a very notable way. The assessment of this impact is considered at the Environmental Impact Statements (EISs), evaluated by the Ministry or by the Autonomous Communities (AACC) depending on the power of the wind farm and its location. Based on the guidelines proposed by SECEMU...

From 1999 to 2021, more than 2600 greater noctules (Nyctalus lasiopterus) were ringed over a large part of the Iberian Peninsula (52% females). The 18% of these noctules were recaptured at least once. Most of the recaptures (97%) took place in the same location that the ringing (roost or mist-netting) or within 5 km of this point, were carried out...

Aim The need to forecast range shifts under future climate change has motivated an increasing interest in better understanding the role of biotic interactions in driving diversity patterns. The contribution of biotic interactions to shaping broad-scale species distributions is, however, still debated, partly due to the difficulty of detecting their...

Insectivorous bats are considered key predators of multiple deleterious arthropods in a wide range of habitats. Current molecular methods for identifying bats' prey in diet studies mainly rely on the metabarcoding of prey DNA extracted from faeces. Nonetheless, metabarcoding not only restricts to a qualitative assessment of the prey list, but it re...

Roost fidelity is an important aspect of mammalian biology. Studying the mechanisms underlying philopatry can help us understand a species’ energetic requirements, ecological constraints and social organisation. Temperate bat species notably exhibit a high degree of female philopatry considering their size, resulting in maternity colonies segregate...

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a global priority. To meet this goal, the Spanish government is planning 89 GW of wind and solar photovoltaic energy in the draft of the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC) for 2021–2030 (1). Despite the Spanish government's efforts to prevent a speculative bubble in the secondary market, there a...

We investigated the birds in the diet of the bird‐like noctule (Nyctalus aviator) through DNA amplification from feather remains found in faecal pellets. Our goal was to confirm whether N. aviator preys on nocturnally migratory species, as does its European relative N. lasiopterus, and to gain insight into this hunting strategy (e.g. on the wing vs...

Understanding the processes that enable species coexistence has important implications for assessing how ecological systems will respond to global change. Morphology and functional similarity increase the potential for competition, and therefore, co-occurring morphologically similar but genetically unique species are a good model system for testing...

Understanding the processes that enable species coexistence has important implications for assessing how ecological systems will respond to global change. Morphology and functional similarity increase the potential for competition, and therefore, co-occurring morphologically similar but genetically unique species are a good model system for testing...

Inferences of the interactions between species’ ecological niches and spatial distribution have been historically based on simple metrics such as low-resolution dietary breadth and range size, which might have impeded the identification of meaningful links between niche features and spatial patterns. We analysed the relationship between dietary nic...

Wind energy is an important source of bat mortality worldwide. Extensive mortality data were gathered by a provincial surveillance program carried out at wind farms in lowland Mediterranean areas of the province of Cadiz, Andalusia (South Spain) between 2005 and 2016. As many as 2,371 bat fatalities were found. We determined the patterns of fatalit...

Adenoviruses are double-strained DNA viruses found in a great number of vertebrates, including humans. In order to understand their transmission dynamics, it is crucial, even from a human health perspective, to investigate how host traits influence their prevalence. Bats are important reservoirs for adenoviruses, and here we use the results of rece...

The Mediterranean Basin is a global biodiversity hotspot, hosting a number of native species belonging to families that are found almost exclusively in tropical climates. Yet, whether or not these taxa were able to survive in the Mediterranean region during the Quaternary climatic oscillations remains unknown. Focusing on the European free‐tailed b...

is a cave-dwelling bat species with a wide distribution in the western Palearctic spanning southern and central Europe, North Africa, Anatolia, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. We investigated the social structure and its effects on the genetic makeup of this species, using 10 nuclear microsatellite markers and a partial fragment of the mitochond...

Cryptic speciation and hybridization are two key processes that affect the origin and maintenance of biodiversity and our ability to understand and estimate it. To determine how these two processes interact, we studied allopatric and sympatric colonies of two cryptic bat species (Eptesicus serotinus and E. isabellinus) with parapatric distribution...

Outbreaks of the processionary moth Thaumetopoea pityocampa (Denis & Schiffer-müller, 1775), a forest pest from the Palearctic, are thought to induce a behavioral response of bats, but up to now the moth has been seldom identified as bats' prey. Studies on bat diets suggest moths with cyclical outbreaks attract a wide array of bat species from diff...

Roost fidelity is an important aspect of mammalian biology. Studying the mechanisms underlying philopatry can help us understand a species' energetic requirements, ecological constraints and social organisation. Temperate bat species notably exhibit a comparatively high degree of female philopatry, resulting in maternity colonies segregated at the...

The discovery of new species of mammals in Europe is a rare event, but owing to recent progress in genetic methods used to survey current biodiversity, such discoveries have been accumulating during the last decades. The naming of these new taxa has important bearings in conservation, as this is the first step needed for them to be recognised by th...

Local adaptations can determine the potential of populations to respond to environmental changes, yet adaptive genetic variation is commonly ignored in models forecasting species vulnerability and biogeographical shifts under future climate change. Here we integrate genomic and ecological modeling approaches to identify genetic adaptations associat...

RESUMEN Los murciélagos tienen una esperanza de vida inusualmente larga entre los mamíferos, y se encuentran en el extremo lento en el "continuo rápido-lento" de las historias de vida de los mamíferos. En esta nota, informamos la recuperación de un Rhinolophus euryale macho anillado en La Rioja (España) con una edad mínima de 21 años, lo que repres...

The Myotis nattereri species complex consists of an entangled group of Western Palaearctic bats characterized by fringing hairs along the rear edge of their uropatagium. Some members are relatively common while others are rare but all forms are morphologically very similar and their taxonomy is unresolved. Recent studies based on different molecula...

In the context of long-term screening for viruses on Western Palaearctic bats, we tested for the presence of adenovirus 1392 oropharyngeal swabs and 325 stool samples taken from 27 bat species. Adenoviruses were detected in 12 species of the Vespertilionidae and the Rhinolophidae families. Fifty positive respiratory and 26 positive stool samples we...

In the context of long-term screening for viruses on Western Palaearctic bats, we tested for the presence of adenovirus 1.392 oropharyngeal swabs and 325 stool samples taken from 27 bat species. Adenoviruses were detected in 12 species of the Vespertilionidae and the Rhinolophidae families. Fifty positive respiratory and 26 positive stool samples w...

Wagner’s mustached bat (Pteronotus personatus) is an insectivorous bat distributed throughout America from Mexico to Brazil, which inhabits a range of habitats from rain forests to dry deciduous forests. There are two currently recognized species within the P. personatus complex, for which we examined 235 cytochrome oxidase I (COI) sequences and 13...

The identification of effects of invasive species is challenging owing to their multifaceted impacts on native biota. Negative impacts are most often reflected in individual fitness rather than in population dynamics of native species and are less expected in low-biodiversity habitats, such as urban environments. We report the long-term effects of...

Este manual sintetiza el conocimiento actual y las metodologías de estudio de los murciélagos arborícolas ibéricos y analiza los factores ambientales que intervienen en su biología y selección del hábitat, a escala de paisaje, rodal y árbol. El manual es accesible para cualquier interesado en la gestión forestal y la conservación de los murciélagos...

The interaction between agricultural production and wildlife can shape, and even condition, the functioning of both systems. In this study we i) explored the degree to which a widespread European bat, namely the common bent-wing bat Miniopterus schreibersii, consumes crop-damaging insects at a continental scale, and ii) tested whether its dietary n...

Climate change is a major threat to global biodiversity that will produce a range of new selection pressures. Understanding species responses to climate change requires an interdisciplinary perspective, combining ecological, molecular and environmental approaches. We propose an applied integrated framework to identify populations under threat from...

SUMMARY This study has three main objectives: 1) to contribute to the knowledge of bat communities of Monfragüe and Cabañeros National Parks. 2) Conduct a comparative morphological and ecological study of two cryptic species of serotine bats (Eptesicus serotinus and E. isabellinus) and 3) study the presence of rabies and herpes viruses in both spec...

A thorough search for bat herpesviruses was carried out in oropharyngeal samples taken from most of the bat species present in the Iberian Peninsula from the Vespertilionidae, Miniopteridae, Molossidae and Rhinolophidae families, in addition to a colony of captive fruit bats from the Pteropodidae family. By using two degenerate consensus PCR method...

Nomenclature, acronyms and GenBank accession numbers of published viruses. (DOCX)

Phylogenetic relationships of the potentially novel bat-hosted gammaherpesviruses. (DOCX)

Appendix S1. Detailed description of DNA extraction, purification, sequencing and genotyping. Table S1. Summary statistics and PCR specifications for microsatellite loci. Table S2. Pairwise DEST values among populations based on microsatellite data.

For elusive mammals like bats, colonization of new areas and colony formation are poorly understood, as is their relationship with the genetic structure of populations. Understanding dispersal and group formation behaviors is critical not only for a better comprehension of mammalian social dynamics, but also for guiding conservation efforts of rare...

Recently, several species of aerial hawking bats have been found to prey on migrating songbirds, but details on this behavior and its relevance for bird migration are still unclear. We sequenced avian DNA in feather-containing scats of the bird-feeding bat Nyctalus lasiopterus from Spain collected during bird migration seasons. We found very high p...

One of the major challenges to understanding the evolution of Neotropical bats concerns our capacity to successfully scrutinize phylogenetic patterns associated with cases of cryptic species complexes. In this study Pteronotus parnellii is examined as a selected example of a known lineage of mormoopid bat that potentially contains several cryptic s...

The high levels of human demands of resources—from food to space and energy—are one of the main drivers of global change and are causing large negative impacts on ecosystems functioning worldwide (Vitousek et al. 1997). Global change components range from climate change to habitat destruction, species invasions, pollution and eutrophication. Althou...

The Daubenton’s bat, Myotis daubentonii (Vespertilionidae; Kuhl 1817) is a medium-size vespertilionid characterized by a wide Eurasian distribution. We explored the phylogeography of this bat looking at several European populations. The specific objectives were: to obtain the first accurate description of the hypervariable domains I and II for this...

The contemporary distribution and genetic composition of biodiversity bear a signature of species’ evolutionary histories and the effects of past climatic oscillations. For many European species, the Mediterranean peninsulas of Iberia, Italy and the Balkans acted as glacial refugia and the source of range re-colonisation, and as a result they conta...

The stable carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of animal tissues is commonly used to trace wildlife diets and analyze food chains. Changes in an animal's isotopic values over time are generally assumed to indicate diet shifts or, less frequently, physiological changes. Although plant isotopic values are known to correlate with climatic seasonal...

Se describe con el microscopio lumínico y el microscopio electrónico de barrido, la estructura de los pelos de las dos especies del género Eptesicus presentes en la península ibérica con el fin de encontrar diferencias que contribuyan a su identificación. Para el estudio se ha tenido en cuenta su distribución actual en nuestro país, por lo que se h...

The molecular identification of prey in faeces is an efficient non-invasive technique to study diet which requires both a satisfactory method of DNA extraction and the design of specific primers to selectively amplify prey's DNA. In this study we evaluated and compared the efficiency of two total DNA extraction methods and five primer pairs for the...

Llamamos biodiversidad al conjunto de la variedad de la vida en todos sus niveles de organización, desde los genes a los individuos, las poblaciones, las especies, las comunidades y los ecosistemas. Pero la biodiversidad es más que la suma de los elementos que componen el mundo vivo. También son biodiversidad las relaciones entre esos elementos, lo...

We present data of bat-fleas (Ischnopsyllidae) collected between 1997 and 2006 in the framework of different studies on bats, and also from the reexamination of museum specimens of unclear identification. New localities are recorded in Spain and Morocco for the flea species Rhinolophopsylla unipectinata unipectinata, R. u. arabs, Ischnopsyllus inte...

Invasive species can take advantage of resources unexploited by natives (opportunism hypothesis) or they can exploit the same resources but more aggressively or efficiently (competition hypothesis), thus impacting native species. However, invasive species tend to exploit anthropogenic habitats that are inefficiently used by natives such as urban en...

Myotis daubentonii (Vespertilionidae. Kuhl, 1817) is a bat widespread in Europe and closely linked to aquatic habitats. It largely occurs in southern Europe, including Italy, Spain and Portugal. Preliminary molecular studies suggest that during the Last Glacial Maximum M. daubentonii populations were confined to the peninsulas of Southern Europe, a...

We used an integrative approach combining cranio-dental characters, mitochondrial and nuclear data and acoustic data to show the presence in the genus Miniopterus of a cryptic species from the Maghreb region. This species was previously recognised as Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhl, 1817). Miniopterus maghrebensis sp. nov. can be differentiated from...

To determine what shapes the distributions of cryptic species, we aimed to unravel ecological niches and geographical distributions of three cryptic bat species complexes in Iberia, Plecotus auritus/begognae, Myotis mystacinus/alcathoe and Eptesicus serotinus/isabellinus (with 44, 69, 66, 27, 121 and 216 records, respectively), considering ecologic...

AimA common pattern in biogeography is the scale-dependent effect of environmental variables on the spatial distribution of species. We tested the role of climatic and land cover variables in structuring the distribution of genetic variation in the grey long-eared bat, Plecotus austriacus, across spatial scales. Although landscape genetics has been...