By revising and updating the records of the Alpine long-eared bat in Italy, we improved knowledge on the species’ distribution at national scale, and disclose the occurrence of this taxon in the Apennine mountains as well, highlighting the importance of integrated approaches in identifying cryptic species of bats, particularly in species-rich countries such as Italy (Galimberti et al. 2012). From a legal point of view, our findings also include a novel administrative region within the area of presence of P. macrobullaris i.e., expand the responsibility of the species monitoring and implementation of conservation measures - as expected by the Habitats Directive - to additional authorities. Furthermore, the species was confirmed to occur in all the biogeographical regions of Italy, i.e., the Alpine, the Continental and the Mediterranean ones (Dibari et al. 2021).
The occurrence of alpine taxa in the Apennine mountains is not new for the Italian vertebrates (e.g., Ichthyosaura alpestris, Chionomys nivalis, Alectoris graeca: Chiocchio et al. 2017; Randi et al. 2003; Agnelli et al. 2021), as many alpine species expanded their ranges throughout the last glacial maximum towards central and southern Apennines, subsequently remaining isolated is these latter areas, in some cases evolutionary diverging until representing novel taxonomic units (e.g., Sciurus meridionalis, Dryomis aspromontis, Ichtyosaura alpestris inexpectata and I. a. apuana). Furthermore, P. macrobullaris has been recorded also in the inner hills of Piedmont, an area showing no contact with the Alpine chain, but communicating, in its southern part, with the Apennines. The small genetic distance between Apennine and Alpine population may suggest either a recent colonization of the Apennines (which is though unlikely), or an effective genetic flow between the two areas.
For several bat species, information on distribution range and population size in Italy is still scanty (Loy et al. 2019; Rondinini et al. 2022), thus hampering a sound assessment of their actual conservation status. The occurrence of several cryptic species, which can be identified from living individuals and in field condition only through the detection of small, often subjective diagnostic features, furtherly limits the completeness of distribution data. As such, multidisciplinary approaches such as ours, integrating data from citizen scientists, professionals, and molecular identification tools, represent a key asset in the study of faunal assemblages at both local (e.g., regional) and national scales, potentially providing valuable data to inform conservation assessment and planning, particularly in the case of poorly known taxa (Zulian et al. 2021).
In our specific case study, adding new records to clarify the distribution at national scale may also have effects on the conservation assessment, e.g. within the IUCN Red List, since P. macrobullaris is currently classified as “Endangered” under the criterion B2ab(iii), also due to its limited range; besides, the threats that affect the species, such as decrease in habitat quality and availability due to human pressure and climate change (Rondinini et al. 2022), still remain and suggest caution before reclassifying the species extinction risk at the national scale.
From an applicative point of view, our results also point to the need to further investigate the presence of P. macrobullaris. Along the Apennine mountains, several areas potentially suitable to P. macrobullaris occur as south as in the Calabria region (Sila, Pollino and Aspromonte massifs), according to modeling exercises (Alberdi et al. 2014), indicating that bat workers operating in such areas - and the National Parks occurring therein - should pose particular attention to the specific identity of locally observed long-eared bats.