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Nepal has been relatively successful in conserving its wildlife by pioneering innovative approaches to conservation, such as benefit sharing in protected area buffer zones and landscape-level conservation approaches. However, compared to other areas of Nepal, the biodiversity of the southeast has received less attention, both in terms of research and conservation. The objective of this study was to use local knowledge as an indicator of wildlife presence and abundance across the forests of southeastern Nepal. Based on 114 focus group discussions with communities in eleven districts between March 2014 and January 2015, we identify potential wildlife hotspots, areas with more prey species to support tiger, areas of species loss, and areas with species of special interest (endangered and data deficient). Our results provide the contours for further study of the presence and distribution of wildlife across the eleven districts. For example, our results suggest that forests in the middle of the study area have higher levels of wildlife diversity, prey species for tiger, and species of interest, while the eastern side of the study area shows more species loss. We do not suggest that these results are an accurate or reliable representation of mammal diversity in southeastern Nepal. However, they can help to prioritize areas for conservation and for further research, as well as build a foundation for working with local communities to conserve wildlife of southeastern Nepal.

Abstract In taxonomic works, the weight to be given to morphological, mitochondrial, or nuclear signals, and the assessment of differences as species or subspecies distinctions has also varied considerably over the past decades and is largely a subjective research decision. This apparent example of the “grey zone of taxonomy” underpins the need of critical studies of as many specimens as possible and of using both mitochondrial and nuclear genes in taxonomic-systematic studies, as phylogeny based on uniparentally inherited genes alone may not represent true evolutionary scenarios. Myotis sicarius , a species occurring thorough the Himalayan foothills was found for the first time out of South Asia, in North Vietnam. Analysis of topotypical and Vietnamese specimens revealed high mitochondrial heterogeneity – at the upper limit of the usual threshold of intraspecific difference – but only minute nuclear sequence and negligible morphological differences. Albeit the large geographic distance between the two records might suggest the existence of two putative reproductively isolated taxonomic units, based on the incongruent results we concluded that the split of geographic populations of M. sicarius into different taxa is unsupported. As a morphologically closely resembling species, we also reviewed the taxonomic status of the two morphological forms of M. annectans and synonymizing M. primula with M. annectans was also corroborated by our phylogenetic analyses.

In this study, we present the first representative complete Taphozous melanopogon mitochondrial genome from China. Its mitochondrial genome was assembled and annotated using MitoZ. The genome is a circular molecule of 16,566 bp in length, including 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 13 protein-coding genes, and a control region. Although maximum-likelihood and Bayesian inference phylogenetic trees indicate that the super family Emballonuridea forms a sister taxon with Noctilionidea instead of Vespertilionidea, mitochondrial genes provide only part of the phylogenetic information, and phylogenetic inferences utilizing nuclear genes are needed in future toward resolving phylogenetic relationship among Vespertilionidea, Noctilionidea, and Emballonuridea.

Murina shuipuensis, a small-sized forest bat with distinct bright orange-yellow ventral fur, is only found from its type locality thus far. In this study, a complete mitochondrial genome of a male individual of M. shuipuensis from Shuifu Village, Libo, Guizhou China (type locality) was sequenced using Illumina Hiseq. Total length of its genome is 16,585 bp, including two rRNA genes, 22 tRNA genes, 13 protein-coding genes, and a control region. The general arrangement of genes is similar to the other chiropteran mitochondrial genomes. The phylogenetic inference indicates M. shuipuensis and M. leucogaster have closer phylogenetic relationship than other taxa that deposited in NCBI-nt. The complete mitochondrial genome provides valuable information for further taxonomic and phylogenetic researches.

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of a male individual of Murina cyclotis from Guangxi province, China, was sequenced and analyzed. The genome is a circular molecule of 16,463 bp length, containing 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, and a control region. Most of the genes were encoded on the H-strand, except for 8 tRNA and ND6 genes. Phylogenetic trees of the complete mitochondrial genome were constructed using RAxML. Our result suggests that M. cyclotis is closely related to M. leucogaster from Korea. The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of M. cyclotis will be helpful for future taxonomic and phylogenetic studies on Murina.