Mitochondrial DNA Phylogeography of the Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) in Northern Japan

Abstract

Mitochondrial DNA variation in the cytochrome b (cyt b) gene and the control region was examined in the red fox Vulpes vulpes from Japan, with special focus on the population divergence between Hokkaido and northern Honshu. Resultant haplotypes from Hokkaido were subdivided into two distinct groups (I and II), with an average genetic distance of 0.027 for cyt b. Divergence time is roughly estimated to be 1-2 million years ago, given that the conventional divergence rate of the mammalian cyt b gene is 2% per million years. Notably, Group II was only found in Hokkaido, whereas Group I comprised haplotypes from Honshu, Kyushu (Japan), eastern Russia, and Europe, as indicated by a comparison of our own data to the literature. On the other hand, judging from constructed trees, Group I haplotypes from Hokkaido appeared to differ from those from other parts of Japan, i.e., Honshu and Kyushu. This implies that Blakiston's Line, which demarcates the boundary between Hokkaido and Honshu, has been an effective barrier and has allowed the structuring of genetic variation in maternal lineages. Thus, these results suggest that the Hokkaido population, which is sometimes referred to as the distinct subspecies V. v. schrencki, has its own genetic background with multiple migration events and differs from the parapatric subspecies V. v. japonica found in Honshu and Kyushu.

Evolutionary history of the sable (Martes zibellina brachyura) on Hokkaido inferred from mitochondrial Cytb and nuclear Mc1r and Tcf25 gene sequences

“…80,000 years ago in McKay (2011). Therefore, migration events might have occurred repeatedly in the late Pleistocene, which concurs with the idea that multiple colonisation events formed the Hokkaido fauna, as predicted from studies of the brown bear (Matsuhashi et al 1999(Matsuhashi et al , 2001) and red fox (Inoue et al 2007). An alternative explanation of the difference in those estimates is that the sable generation time is longer than 2-4…”

Colonization history of the sableMartes zibellina(Mammalia, Carnivora) on the marginal peninsula and islands of northeastern Eurasia

“…This migration time estimate is consistent with that for the Korean field mouse (Sakka et al 2010), but not with those for the Eurasian flying squirrel, the gray redbacked vole, and the mountain hare, whose migration times were estimated to occur during the late Middle Pleistocene (Yamada et al 2002;Oshida et al 2005;Abramson et al 2012;Kinoshita et al 2012). On the other hand, the brown bear Ursus arctos and the red fox Vulpes vulpes possess several distinctive mtDNA lineages on Hokkaido, suggesting repeated colonizations since the Middle to Late Pleistocene (Matsuhashi et al 1999(Matsuhashi et al , 2001Inoue et al 2007;Korsten et al 2009;Hirata et al 2013). For Sakhalin, the signature of repeated migrations from the continent has also been suggested for the brown bear and the mountain hare, indicating that the migration to Sakhalin from the continent occurred after the establishment of the Hokkaido lineage (Kinoshita et al 2012;Hirata et al 2013).…”

“…Meanwhile, recent phylogeographic studies have shown that peripheral populations of Eurasian boreal mammals in areas such as the Kamchatka Peninsula and on Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and the southern Kuril Islands possess characteristic genetic structures compared to mainland populations (Iwasa et al 2000;Matsuhashi et al 2001;Inoue et al 2007;Iwasa et al 2009;Korsten et al 2009;Bannikova et al 2010;Davison et al 2011;Malyarchuk et al 2011;Abramson et al 2012;Kinoshita et al 2012;Ohdachi et al 2012;Yu et al 2012;Gus'kov et al 2013;Hirata et al 2013;Ishida et al 2013;Malyarchuk et al 2013). However, the unique colonization histories of these peripheral populations have not been sufficiently discussed in combination with the demographic population expansions that occurred on mainland Eurasia, with the exception of studies on a limited number of species (Iwasa et al 2000;Poyarkov and Kuzmin 2008;Korsten et al 2009;Davison et al 2011;Abramson et al 2012;Ohdachi et al 2012;Hirata et al 2013).…”

High genetic distinctiveness of wild and farm fox (Vulpes vulpes L.)populations in Poland: evidence from mitochondrial DNA analysis

“…The study showed that the Turkish red fox is nested within two main phylogroups and exhibits high genetic diversity (İbiş et al, 2014). Vulpes vulpes representatives commonly occur in various geographical areas, including on the islands of Japan, where individuals of this species also form genetically distinct populations classified by some researchers as a separate subspecies (Inoue et al, 2007). Analysis of South Korean individuals showed that they were separated into two lineages of Eurasian and North Pacific groups showing unclear phylogeographic structuring (Yu et al, 2012).…”