Phylogeographic reconstruction of the common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus and the role of the Central Andes of Colombia

The common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus is a hematophagous mammal with a wide distribution range that extends from northern Mexico to northern Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay. Despite numerous population-genetics studies of this species throughout its distribution range, data for Colombia are limited, no studies have comprehensively synthesized and dated the diversification process across its entire distribution. This study yielded a dataset of cytochrome b (Cytb) sequences from the western slope of the Central Cordillera and the western slopes of the Western Cordillera (mountain range) in Central Colombia. We integrated these sequences with those from Central and South America available in GenBank and reconstructed the phylogeography of the common vampire bat across its range. We observed three distinct haplotypes in Colombia, indicating evidence of ongoing connectivity between populations separated by the Western Cordillera. At the continental level, we identified seven monophyletic clades, highlighting the separation of the trans-Andean clades of Peru and southwestern Brazil from the rest, as well as the dispersal of species from south to north. In contrast to the Colombian Western Cordillera, we conclude that the Peruvian Andes constitute a geographical barrier between cis- and trans-Andean populations of D. rotundus. Furthermore, the phylogeography of D. rotundus was shaped by a close historical relationship between northwestern South America and Central America, with additional separations during the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition.