Invalidation of taxa within the silvery wooly monkey (Lagothrix lagothricha poeppigii, Atelidae, Primates).

The systematics of the Humboldt's wooly monkeys (L. lagothricha; Atelidae) is essential to preserve this Neotropical primate species. Traditionally, four morphological subspecies have been described, which recently have been molecularly confirmed. However, no population genetics studies have been carried out throughout the geographical distribution of one of these subspecies, Lagothrix lagothricha poeppigii. For this reason, we analyzed nine mitochondrial genes of L. l. poeppigii mainly collected from the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon in order to better understand the evolutionary history of this taxon. The mitochondrial genetic diversity levels (haplotype and nucleotide diversity) we estimated are likely the highest yet reported for L. lagothricha. Our results did not detect important genetic structure within L. l. poeppigii. Furthermore, our phylogenetic analyses did not detect any relevant molecular cluster in the area where Groves hypothesized the existence of L. poeppigii castelnaui. Therefore, based on these data, castelnaui is not a valid taxon from a molecular perspective. The most differentiated subpopulation within L. l. poeppigii was from Morona-Santiago province (Ecuador) and had a genetic distance of 0.8-1.2% relative to the other subpopulations studied. However, this genetic distance range is within the variability found within a population. We estimated the mitochondrial temporal diversification within L. l. poeppigii to have occurred during the Pleistocene, 1.8-1.2 million years ago. Similarly, all our analyses detected a strong Pleistocene female population expansion for this taxon. Diverse spatial genetic analyses, perhaps with the exception of Monmonier's Algorithm, did not detect differentiated taxa within the area analyzed for L. l. poeppigii. These genetics results could be of importance to conservation efforts to preserve this taxon as one unit.

First Molecular Phylogenetic Analysis of the Lagothrix Taxon Living in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia: Lagothrix lagothricha tschudii (Atelidae, Primates), a New Subspecies.

We sequenced mitochondrial COI and COII genes (1,377 base pairs) of 166 woolly monkeys (Lagothrix) to determine the phylogenetic relationships of tschudii in reference to the other taxa within the genus Lagothrix, to provide the first genetic diversity level estimates for tschudii, and to reconstruct the historical demographic evolution of this taxon. The sample set included, for the first time, 10 individuals of the elusive tschudii taxon sensu Groves from southern Peru and northern Bolivia. Our phylogenetic analyses showed that these 10 exemplars formed a statistically significant and differentiated (molecularly and morphologically) monophyletic clade relative to other traditional subspecies of Lagothrix lagothricha. Therefore, tschudii should be recognized as a fifth subspecies: Lagothrix lagothricha tschudii. The temporal divergence of the ancestors of tschudii and L. l. cana was estimated to have occurred around 1.8 million years ago (MYA). Additionally, mitochondrial diversification within tschudii started no later than 0.96 MYA (Bayesian Inference) or 0.88 MYA (Median Joining -Network), respectively. In contrast to the phylogenetic trees, the FSTstatistic and the gene flow estimates showed L. l. lugens to be the least differentiated taxon of L. lagothricha from L. l. tschudii. Based on genetic distances, L. l. tschudii had the smallest average genetic distance from the other subspecies of L. lagothricha.It was also the taxon within L. lagothricha that had the smallest genetic distance from L. flavicauda. It should be related to L. l. tschudii as the first original taxon in L. lagothricha. Furthermore, the Andean mountains were extremely important in the original diversification of the Lagothrix genus and in the original diversification of L. lagothricha. Although L. l. tschudii has the smallest geographical range of all the taxa of L. lagothricha, its genetic diversity is even higher than in other taxa with wider geographical ranges, such as L. l. lagothricha and L. l. cana. L. l. tschudii showed a very slight demographic increase during the Pleistocene with a decrease of females in the last 10,000 Y, similar to that found for L. l. lugens in a previous study.