Biblioteca Virtual en Salud

Although Rallidae is the most diverse family within Gruiformes, there is little information concerning the karyotype of the species in this group. In fact, Gallinula melanops, a species of Rallidae found in Brazil, is among the few species studied cytogenetically, but only with conventional staining and repetitive DNA mapping, showing 2n=80. Thus, in order to understand the karyotypic evolution and phylogeny of this group, the present study aimed to analyze the karyotype of G. melanops by classical and molecular cytogenetics, comparing the results with other species of Gruiformes. The results show that G. melanops has the same chromosome rearrangements as described in Gallinula chloropus (Clade Fulica), including fission of ancestral chromosomes 4 and 5 of Gallus gallus (GGA), beyond the fusion between two of segments resultants of the GGA4/GGA5, also fusions between the chromosomes GGA6/GGA7. Thus, despite the fact that some authors have suggested the inclusion of G. melanops in genus Porphyriops, our molecular cytogenetic results confirm its place in the Gallinula genus. / We are grateful to the staff of Laboratório de Diversidade Genética Animal from Universidade Federal do Pampa (Campus São Gabriel), CNPq (309699/2015-0), PROPESP-UFPA and CAPES for technical and financial support. This research was partially funded by a grant to EHCO from CNPq (307382/2019-2) and to MAFS from the Wellcome Trust in support of the Cambridge Resource Centre for Comparative Genomics and by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/K008161/1) to the University of Kent, also by UIDB/CVT/00772/2020 funded by the Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT).