Save Our Bats, Save Our Tequila: Industry and Science Join Forces to Help Bats and Agaves

The genus Agave is one of the most diverse and rich groups of plants of Mexico. Mexican people have developed several technologies to extract products from Agave, and for many years they have consumed five different alcoholic beverages derived from Agave: Tequila, Mezcal, Bacanora, Raicilla, and Pulque. Additionally, Agave has coevolved with nectar-feeding bats, and in several cases, bats play the main role as functional pollinators in this ecological relationship. But with growth in the demand of agave derived products, management practices have reduced dependence on bat pollination, using instead clonal shoots to replant fields and harvesting plants before flowering, thereby negatively affecting both bats (by decreasing food availability) and agaves (by lowering their genetic diversity). We explore the possibility that bat-friendly practices may be incorporated into the production system. We compiled data about the pollination biology of Agave to infer how many bats could use the available resources, if Mezcal and Tequila producers allowed 5–10% of agave crop inflorescences to flower based on a linear projection using Agave angustifolia (a sister group of A. tequilana). If only 5% of the plants in one hectare were allowed to flower (approximately 222 individuals), then, depending on nectar concentration and total volume, a minimum of 89 individual bats could feed every night during flowering period. This means that allowing 5% of the current total population of A. tequilana reproductive agaves to flower could feed a total of 2,336,250 nectar feeding bats per month

Discordance in maternal and paternal genetic markers in lesser long-nosed bat Leptonycteris yerbabuenae, a migratory bat: recent expansion to the North and male phylopatry

Leptonycteris yerbabuenae, the lesser long-nosed bat is an abundant migratory nectar-feeding bat found in most of Mexico, and in some areas of northern Central America and small sections of southwestern USA. We analyzed the distribution of the maternal and paternal lineages of this species with phylogeographic methods based on two mitochondrial markers, Cyt-b and D-loop, and a marker located in the Y chromosome, DBY. We obtained tissue samples from 220 individuals from 23 localities. Levels of genetic diversity (haplotype diversity, Hd) were high (Cyt-b = 0.757; D-loop = 0.8082; DBY = 0.9137). No clear patterns of population genetic structure were found for mitochondrial markers, while male genetic differentiation suggested the presence of two lineages: one from Mexican Pacific coast states and another from central-southern Mexico; in accordance to strong male philopatry and higher female migration. We used genealogical reconstructions based on Bayesian tools to calculate divergence times, and to test coalescent models to explain changes in L. yerbabuenae historical demography. Our results show that recent demographic changes were consistent with global climatic changes (∼130,000 kyr ago for Cyt-b and ∼160,000 kyr for D-loop) and divergence times dated from molecular genealogies exhibited older divergence times, Cyt-b (4.03 mya), D-loop (10.26 mya) and DBY (12.23 mya). Accordingly, the female lineage underwent demographic expansion associated to Pleistocene climate change, whereas the male lineage remained constant