engleski

Can whole mitogenome analyses contribute to the elucidation of Rupicapra phylogeny?

The chamois, genus Rupicapra, is the most abundant mountain-dwelling ungulate in Europe and the Middle East and is currently recognised to be divided into two species: Rupicapra rupicapra (Northern chamois) and Rupicapra pyrenaica (Southern chamois), which are further subdivided into seven and three subspecies respectively. Although currently classified as least-concern in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, information on the status of the species need updating. To further complicate the assessment, the genus has been subject of reintroductions and translocation, sometimes without prior knowledge on the taxonomic status of individuals, and there is a molecular controversy over the subspecies subdivision based on morphological and behavioural characters. We combined previously published (N=5) with newly assembled (N=9) mitogenomes to further investigate the phylogeny of the genus. To avoid erroneous hypotheses on homology we excluded all indels, ambiguous positions and the portion of the control region presenting tandem repeats in the Caprini. The final alignment consisted of 15348 bp, 14 Rupicapra sequences and two outgroups (Ammotragus lervia and Arabitragus jayakari). Both Bayesian and maximum likelihood analyses showed the same subdivision in Eastern, Central and Western clades previously reported. Within the Eastern clade R. r. balcanica was the most differentiated and included both sequences from the known hybrid population of the Velebit Mountains, whereas R. r. tatrica and R. r. rupicapra had a sister group relationship. Although we observed differences in variability among genes, our results confirm the reliability of previous studies based on a reduced number of mitochondrial genes.

'mitochondrial DNA ; chamois ; phylogeny'

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