Complete mitochondrial genome of the four-lined snake, <i>Elaphe quatuorlineata</i> (Bonnaterre, 1790)

Jablonski, Daniel; Šoltýs, Katarína; Simonov, Evgeniy

doi:10.1080/23802359.2019.1573121

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…The overall base composition of the mitogenomes in descending order was 34.7/34.6%-A, 26.9/26.9%-C, 25.6/25.7%-T, 12.8/12.8%-G, with an equal A + T bias (60.3%). This composition is almost identical to the published mitogenomes of E. quatuorlineata and E. sauromates 26,34 .…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 83%

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A new, rare, small-ranged, and endangered mountain snake of the genus Elaphe from the Southern Levant

Jablonski

Ribeiro‐Júnior

Simonov

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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The genus Elaphe Fitzinger, 1833 includes 17 species of charismatic, large-sized, non-venomous, Eurasian snakes. In the Western Palearctic, the genus is represented by three species from the Elaphe quatuorlineata group ranging from the Apennine peninsula to Central Asia. The southernmost population of this group is distributed in the mountains of the Southern Levant, with more than 400 km gap to other Elaphe populations. This population has been known to science for only 50 years and is virtually unstudied due to its extreme rarity. We studied these snakes’ morphological and genetic variation from the three countries where they are known to occur, i.e., Israel (Hermon, the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights), Lebanon, and Syria. We used nine mitochondrial and nuclear genes, complete mitogenome sequences, and a comprehensive morphological examination including published data, our own field observations, and museum specimens, to study its relationship to other species in the group. The three currently recognized species of the group (E. quatuorlineata, E. sauromates, E. urartica), and the Levant population, form four deeply divergent, strongly supported clades. Three of these clades correspond to the abovementioned species while the Southern Levant clade, which is genetically and morphologically distinct from all named congeners, is described here as a new species, Elaphe druzei sp. nov. The basal divergence of this group is estimated to be the Late Miocene with subsequent radiation from 5.1 to 3.9 Mya. The revealed biogeography of the E. quatuorlineata group supports the importance of the Levant as a major center of endemism and diversity of biota in Eurasia. The new species is large-sized and is one of the rarest snakes in the Western Palearctic. Because of its small mountain distribution range, in an area affected by land use and climate change, the new Elaphe urgently needs strict protection. Despite political issues, we hope this will be based on the cooperation of all countries where the new species occurs.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 83%

“…We had the appropriate permissions to use the snake tissue voucher specimen from different museums. Genetic data from the Southern Levant populations were compared with sequences representing major clades of the group obtained from 25 , 26 , 28 , 34 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new, rare, small-ranged, and endangered mountain snake of the genus Elaphe from the Southern Levant

Jablonski

Ribeiro‐Júnior

Simonov

et al. 2023

Sci Rep

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“…It was described as a separate species under the name Elaphis sauromates (see: Strauch, 1873), followed by being synonymized with Coluber quatuorlineatus Bonnaterre, 1790, and subsequently treated as its subspecies C. quatuorlineatus sauromates (Boulenger, 1894). At the beginning of the 21st century, morphological and molecular-phylogenetic studies justified the species status of E. sauromates (Helfenberger, 2001; Lenk, Joger & Wink, 2001; Utiger et al, 2002) and this view has been largely accepted to date (Sindaco, Venchi & Grieco, 2013; Sillero et al, 2014; Wallach, Williams & Boundy, 2014; Jablonski, Soltys & Simonov, 2019). Aside from confirming the separate species status of E. sauromates , early genetic studies found a surprisingly high genetic distance between populations from Kazakhstan and eastern Turkey (5.0–6.5% in Lenk, Joger & Wink, 2001 or even 7.6% in Huang et al, 2012), which was quite similar to the distances between E. sauromates and E. quatuorlineata , E. dione and E. bimaculata Schmidt, 1925 , E. quadrivirgata (Boie, 1826) and E. carinata (Günther, 1864), or between E. quadrivirgata and E. schrenckii (Strauch, 1873) (Utiger et al, 2002; Huang et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The biogeography ofElaphe sauromates(Pallas, 1814), with a description of a new rat snake species

Jablonski

Kukushkin

Avcı

et al. 2019

PeerJ

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Background The rat snake genus Elaphe once comprised several dozens of species distributed in temperate through tropical zones of the New and Old World. Based on molecular-genetic analyses in early 2000s, the genus was split into several separate genera, leaving only 15 Palearctic and Oriental species as its members. One of the three species also occurring in Europe is Elaphe sauromates, a robust snake from the Balkans, Anatolia, Caucasus, Ponto-Caspian steppes, and Levant that has been suspected to be composed of two or more genetically diverse populations. Here, we studied the genetic structure and morphological variation of E. sauromates, aiming to better understand its inter-population relationships and biogeography, and subsequently revise its taxonomy. Methods We reconstructed the phylogeography and analyzed the genetic structure of E. sauromates populations originating from most of its geographic range using both mitochondrial (COI, ND4) and nuclear (C-MOS, MC1R, PRLR, RAG1) DNA gene fragments. We employed Maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods for the phylogenetic tree reconstructions, supplemented with species delimitation methods, analysis of haplotype networks, and calculation of uncorrected p-distances. Morphological variation in 15 metric and 18 meristic characters was studied using parametric univariate tests as well as multivariate general linearized models. In total, we analyzed sequences originating from 63 specimens and morphological data from 95 specimens of E. sauromates sensu lato. Results The molecular phylogeny identified two clearly divergent sister lineages within E. sauromates, with both forming a lineage sister to E. quatuorlineata. The genetic distance between them (5.80–8.24% in mtDNA) is similar to the distances among several other species of the genus Elaphe. Both lineages are also moderately morphologically differentiated and, while none of the characters are exclusively diagnostic, their combination can be used for confident lineage identification. Here, following the criteria of genetic and evolutionary species concepts, we describe the lineage from eastern Anatolia and parts of the Lesser and Great Caucasus as a new species E. urartica sp. nov. Discussion Elaphe urartica sp. nov. represents a cryptic species whose ancestors presumably diverged from their common ancestor with E. sauromates around the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. The intraspecific genetic structure indicates that the recent diversity of both species has been predominantly shaped by Pleistocene climatic oscillations, with glacial refugia mainly located in the Balkans, Crimea, and/or Anatolia in E. sauromates and Anatolia and/or the Caucasus in E. urartica sp. nov.

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“…Five protein-coding genes (ND1, ND2, ND3, COXII, and COXIII) are inferred to terminate with an incomplete stop codon T--; five protein-coding genes (ATP8, ATP6, ND4L, ND5, and CYTB) share the typical termination codon TAA; COXI and ND6 have stop codon AGA, and ND4 use AGG as a stop codon. For 13 protein-coding genes, the A þ T content ranges from 52.58% to 61.73%, which is higher than that of G þ C (Jablonski et al 2019). In addition, we detected that 18 nucleotides from nine locations overlapped with the length of overlapped sequence of 1-5 bp, whereas there are totally 51 bp intergenic nucleotides in seven locations with the length of intergenic spacer of 1-33 bp.…”

Section: Colubridae; Mitochondrial Genome; Pseudoxenodon Macropsmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…For 13 protein-coding genes, the A + T content ranges from 52.58% to 61.73%, which is higher than that of G + C (Jablonski et al. 2019 ). In addition, we detected that 18 nucleotides from nine locations overlapped with the length of overlapped sequence of 1–5 bp, whereas there are totally 51 bp intergenic nucleotides in seven locations with the length of intergenic spacer of 1–33 bp.…”

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confidence: 99%

The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of big-eyed Mountain keelback Pseudoxenodon macrops

Liao

Tang

Peng

et al. 2020

Mitochondrial DNA Part B

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In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome of big-eyed mountain keelback Pseudoxenodon macrops was sequenced adopting Illumina high-throughput sequencing technology. The complete mitogenome of the species was 19,444 bp in length, including 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, two ribosomal RNA genes, and two non-coding control regions (CR). The overall base composition of mitogenome was 32.0% A, 25.5% T, 28.2% C, and 14.3% G. Most mitochondrial genes are encoded on the heavy strand, only ND6 and eight tRNA genes are on the light strand. We expect that the presented mitogenome can provide important data for future studies on phylogenetic relationship and population genetics of this species.

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Complete mitochondrial genome of the four-lined snake, Elaphe quatuorlineata (Bonnaterre, 1790)

Cited by 4 publications

References 5 publications

A new, rare, small-ranged, and endangered mountain snake of the genus Elaphe from the Southern Levant

A new, rare, small-ranged, and endangered mountain snake of the genus Elaphe from the Southern Levant

The biogeography ofElaphe sauromates(Pallas, 1814), with a description of a new rat snake species

The complete mitochondrial genome sequence of big-eyed Mountain keelback Pseudoxenodon macrops

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