ABSTRACT
The northern three-toed jerboa Dipus sagitta had long been considered to be a single polytypic species. High genetic diversity of D. sagitta was earlier revealed on the basis of several mitochondrial and nuclear genes, and several separate species were hypothesized to occur within the taxon. However, the relationships between phylogenetic lineages have not been established because of the small sample size of nuclear genes. In the present work, a far larger set of nuclear DNA loci was used, and thus, a higher resolution of the phylogenetic tree was achieved for ten D. sagitta forms. The structure revealed for the species mainly confirmed the topology and relationships of the mtDNA lineages. Yet the mitochondrial and nuclear phylogenies were not completely consistent. Some of the D. sagitta genetic lineages were therefore assumed to be a product of reticular evolutionary processes. The taxon was concluded to be the diverse species complex D. sagitta sensu lato, in which long-diverged lineages are not always reproductively isolated.
Subject(s)
Biological Evolution , DNA, Mitochondrial , Animals , Phylogeny , DNA, Mitochondrial/genetics , Rodentia , Sequence Analysis, DNAABSTRACT
Phylogeography of the steppe bat, Myotis davidii in the eastern part of its broad range, was explored for the first time using mitochondrial genetic markers. The presence of two main intraspecific clades, Eastern and Western, was confirmed. Definite inner structure inside the Eastern group was shown. We discovered genetic diversity hotspot in northwestern Mongolia and neighboring regions, where highly divergent haplotypes are found. Presumably, this can be explained by Pleistocene refugial structure shaped by the ridges of the Mongolian Altai. The haplogroups from the southeast of Mongolia and Transbaikalia found to be related, while populations of the Kerulen valley located between these regions carry more distant haplotypes.
