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Antrozous pallidus from USA.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Clare
Scientific Frontline: Extended "At a Glance" Summary: Bat Evolution and the Genomic Family Tree
The Core Concept: A comprehensive study combining high-quality genomic data from 103 bat species with fossil evidence to reconstruct the evolutionary history and origin of bats.
Key Distinction/Mechanism: Unlike previous methods, this approach integrates both DNA sequencing of all 21 recognized bat families and data from 44 global fossils, allowing researchers to accurately map the oldest fossil bats alongside modern genomic data to determine when and where they originated.
Origin/History: The study establishes that bats most likely originated in Europe around 65 million years ago, overturning prior hypotheses that suggested Asian, African, or North American origins.
Major Frameworks/Components:
- The assembly of the largest collection of high-quality bat genomes to date.
- The combination of modern genomic sequencing with global fossil records.
- The reconstruction of the bat ancestral genome.
- The determination that echolocation, alongside powered flight, emerged near the dawn of bat evolution (evidenced by the fossil bat Vielasia).
Branch of Science: Evolutionary Biology, Genomics, Paleontology, and Zoology.
Future Application: Providing a genomic map to investigate the genetic basis of exceptional longevity, advanced biosonar, and unusual disease resistance.
Why It Matters: Understanding the genetic foundations of bat traits offers significant potential for cross-species application, particularly in informing human health research concerning aging, immunity, and disease resistance.
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| Corynorhinus_townsendii. Photo Credit: Elizabeth Clare |
Groundbreaking research from the University of St Andrews has resulted in the largest combined bat genome and fossil study ever undertaken, revealing that bats most likely originated in Europe around 65 million years ago before spreading across the globe.
The work also reveals that echolocation, like flight, evolved near the dawn of bat evolution and lays the groundwork for research into the genetic basis of bats’ exceptional longevity and disease resistance, which has potential relevance to human health.
In a study published in Nature, an international team of 137 researchers from 64 countries, working together as part of the Bat1K consortium, combined genomic and fossil evidence to show that bats, and thus mammalian flight, most likely originated in Europe around 65 million years ago.
These results overturn previous hypotheses proposing Asian, African, or North American origins. Bats’ earliest descendants dispersed into Africa, establishing a Europe-Africa hub from which they expanded into Asia, the Americas, and Australia.
The team assembled the largest collection of high-quality bat genomes to date, covering 103 species and representing all 21 currently recognized bat families. Researchers used state-of-the-art DNA sequencing and computational methods to generate and compare these genomes and to identify the genes they contain. They integrated these genomic data with records of 44 fossil bats from across the globe to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the world’s only flying mammals. Building this dataset required samples collected over decades from bats worldwide, including representatives of some of the rarest and most unusual bat families found in the most remote locations.
Bats are among the most extraordinary mammals on Earth. They are the only mammals capable of true, powered flight, and most orient and hunt in complete darkness using sound alone. With more than 1,500 species distributed across the globe, bats account for one-fifth of all living mammals and play vital roles in maintaining healthy ecosystems by pollinating plants, dispersing seeds, and consuming vast numbers of insect pests.
Despite the extraordinary biology and ecological importance of bats, scientists have struggled for decades to answer fundamental questions about their evolution: Where did bats come from? How are the bat families related? When did flight and echolocation emerge? And how did bats evolve the unusual traits that set them apart from other mammals?
This study provides answers to many of these long-standing questions. The team analyzed the genomes and fossils using novel methods and revised the bat evolutionary tree, resolving several long-running debates about how the major bat groups are related.
Senior author and Bat1K director Sonja Vernes of the University of St Andrews said, “Bats constantly surprise us. They are one of evolution’s greatest experiments. This extraordinary genomic resource—the culmination of years of international cooperation by Bat1K—is finally allowing us to understand how their remarkable biology evolved.”
Furthermore, many bat species show remarkable resistance to disease and have exceptionally long lifespans for their size. The genomic resource built for this study gives scientists the first robust evolutionary framework to investigate the genes behind these traits. This work could eventually inform human research into aging, immunity, and disease resistance.
Senior author Liliana M. Dávalos of Stony Brook University said, “The approach we used to model the evolution of fossil and living species together can do what other methods cannot: identify the oldest group of fossil bats while taking the genomic data into account, and uncover when and where bats originated.”
The fossil evidence also provides important clues about another long-standing mystery: when bats first evolved echolocation.
The placement of the fossil bat Vielasia within the oldest branch of the bat family tree indicates that echolocation predates the diversification of modern bats. This finding suggests that two of the defining characteristics of bat biology—echolocation and powered flight—were established near the origin of the group itself, helping to explain the extraordinary evolutionary success of bats over the subsequent 65 million years.
The team also reconstructed the genome of the last common ancestor of bats, showing what the first genome of a mammal capable of flight would have looked like.
This provides scientists with a genomic map of how one lineage of mammals evolved powered flight, advanced biosonar, exceptional longevity, and unusual disease resistance—a foundation for tracing the genetic basis of these traits with relevance well beyond bats.
Published in journal: Nature
Title: Reference genomes and fossils revise bat family phylogeny and biogeography
Authors: Ariadna E. Morales, Yan Liang (梁妍), William R. Thomas, Evgeny V. Leushkin, Francisco X. Castellanos, Denis M. Larkin, Tom Brown, Bastian Fromm, Suzanne J. Hand, Zixia Huang, Graham M. Hughes, Matthew F. Jones, Burton K. Lim, Meike Mai, Eugene W. Myers, Martin Pippel, Sebastien J. Puechmaille, Nancy B. Simmons, Linelle Ann L. Abueg, Nadav Ahituv, Zahran A. AlAbdulsalam, Ine Alvarez van Tussenbroek, Dineilys V. Aparicio, Lina M. Arcila Hernández, Alexander Ben Hamadou, Petr Benda, Mark Blaxter, Alex V. Borisenko, Jorge Brocca, Nair Cabezón, Lucia Carbone, Jose I. Carvajal, Wharton O. Y. Chan, Paul Davis, Dina K. N. Dechmann, Annette Denzinger, Judith L. Eger, Seth J. Eiseb, David Enard, Mark D. Engstrom, Nicole M. Foley, Giulio Formenti, Jackson Fuller, Ismael Galván, Akshamal M. Gamage, Neil J. Gemmell, Joanne E. Gillum, Alejandro Gonzales-Irribarren, Mailyn A. Gonzalez, Steven M. Goodman, Jonathan Gray, Carola Greve, Michael W. Guernsey, Edgar G. Gutiérrez, Yelena Guttman, Michael Hackenberg, Elena Hilario, Leon Hilgers, Thomas W. Horsley, Melissa R. de Waal, Deirdre M. Jafferally, Erich D. Jarvis, Sahieda A. Joemratie, Mirjam Knörnschild, Jenna E. Kohles, Dimitrios-Georgios Kontopoulos, Bonhwang Koo, M. Elise Lauterbur, Michael Letko, Harris A. Lewin, Shenglin Liu, Darrell K. Lizamore, Brian D. Lloyd, Livia Loureiro, M. Cristina MacSwiney G, Yury V. Malovichko, Kirsty McCaffrey, Dominik W. Melville, Magdalena Meyer, William O. Mgoola, Matthieu Muffato, Vincent J. Munster, William J. Murphy, Martina Nagy, Nicolas Nesi, Kimberly A. Nevonen, Haris Nicolaou, Evans E. Nkrumah, Zacharias Norman, Brian P. O’Toole, Sarah H. Olson, Alain Ondzie, Bismark A. Opoku, Jorge Ortega, William S. Pearman, Francy J. Perez-Llanos, Kendra L. Phelps, Myrtani Pieri, Sarahjane Power, Maksym Prylutskyi, Paola Pulido-Santacruz, Guoying Qi, Bernal Rodríguez-Herrera, Danny Rojas, Indranee Roopsind, Stephen J. Rossiter, Constance Scharff, Tilman Schell, Stephanie N. Seifert, Fernando Simal, Pipat Soisook, Simone Sommer, Andrew Spalton, Emma L. Stone, Peter H. Sudmant, Sam Talbot, Robert M. Timm, Laura Uelze, Nathan S. Upham, Marek Uvizl, Peter Vallo, Juan M. Vazquez, Lin-Fa Wang, Linet C. Watson, Daniel Whitby, Sylke Winkler, York Winter, Laurel R. Yohe, Monika Zavodna, Ning Zhang, Huabin Zhao, David A. Ray, Sonja C. Vernes, Liliana M. Dávalos, Michael Hiller, and Emma C. Teeling
Source/Credit: University of St Andrews
Edited by: Scientific Frontline
Reference Number: ebio092326_02