Geographical pattern and historical demography of Midday gerbil Meriones meridianus (Gerbillidae, Rodentia) inferred from the sequences of the mitochondrial DNA control region

Abstract

ABSTRACT. In order to examine DNA sequence variation, the cause of geographic patterns and historical demography of populations, we sampled 69 individuals of Midday gerbil Meriones meridianus. Among the comparable sequences of 396 bp, 52 haplotypes were defined, 97 nucleotide sites were variable (24.5% in the full sequences). Phylogenetic tree constructed using the neighbor-joining (NJ) of haplotypes demonstrated three clades associated with geographical regions. There were no shared haplotypes found among regions. Time of gene divergence between three clades of Midday gerbil was estimated by mean nucleotide difference, suggesting the divergence of three clades during the Middle Pleistocene. The pattern of phylogenetic discontinuity is a result of both factors which is associated with the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and climate change in Quaternary ice ages. We also examined the historical demography of the clades using stepwise and exponential expansion models, both of which indicated recent rapid population growth. The pairwise mismatch distribution suggested a pattern of population expansion. The population expansion analysis indicated that the present distribution of the population was probably shaped through the rapid range expansion during the last interglaciation stage from the refugium.KEY WORDS: Midday gerbil, mitochondrial DNA control region, phylogeography, historical demography.

Geographical variation in the cranial measurements of the midday jirdMeriones meridianus(Rodentia: Muridae) and its taxonomic implications

“…The pattern of craniological variation in the midday jird that was revealed in the present study concurs with the pattern of phylogroup distribution (Zou et al. ; Neronov et al. ; Ito et al.…”

“…M. meridianus inhabits sandy habitats in the northern part of the superspecies range, covering an area from the North Caspian depression to the Mongolian Dzungaria (up to the Tahiyn‐Shar‐Nuruu Mountains) and northern Xinjiang (Zou et al. ; Neronov et al. ; Ito et al.…”

“…Furthermore, three mtDNA phylogroups of M. meridianus sensu lato were revealed in the Xinjiang province (China) by Zou et al. () and subsequently by Ito et al. (), with intergroup genetic distances corresponding to species‐level divergence (Fig.…”

“…Geographical variation of the midday jird: (a) mt DNA variation based on recent publications (Zou et al. ; Neronov et al. ; Ito et al.…”

Development of an effective microsatellite marker system to determine the genetic structure of <i>Meriones meridianus</i> populations

“…cryptorhinus from the south of the Taklamakan Desert belongs to M. psammophilus [10,40]. Based on the distance and barriers, there is a low genetic flow between the two subpopulations, which can be attributed to the differences between the two groups.…”