Systematics of the Southeast Asian mongooses (Herpestidae, Carnivora): solving the mystery of the elusive collared mongoose and Palawan mongoose

Abstract

Although recent molecular studies have clarified the phylogeny of mongooses, the systematics of the Southeast Asian species was incomplete as the collared mongoose Urva semitorquata and some debatable taxa (Hose's mongoose, Palawan mongoose) were missing in the analyses. We sequenced three mitochondrial (cytochrome b, ND2, control region) and one nuclear (beta-fibrinogen intron 7) fragments of the Southeast Asian mongooses to clarify the systematic position of the different species and populations occurring in this region. Our results showed that the collared mongoose is closely related to the crab-eating mongoose Urva urva, these two species forming a sistergroup to the short-tailed mongoose Urva brachyura. Despite Sumatran collared mongooses having a peculiar orange phenotype, we showed that they exhibited very little genetic divergence to individuals from Borneo. In contrast, the populations of the short-tailed mongoose from Borneo were strongly divergent to those from Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra, and these might represent separate species. Within the crab-eating mongoose, we observed little geographical genetic structure. Our study suggests that Hose's mongoose is not a valid species. The Palawan mongooses did not cluster with the other populations of the short-tailed mongoose; they were closer to the collared mongoose and should be included in this species.

Molecular systematics and biogeography of the Hemigalinae civets (Mammalia, Carnivora)

“…The Mentawai Islands have been separated from Sumatra at least since the Mid-Pleistocene and might have remained separated despite the sea level fluctuations of the Late Pleistocene (Voris 2000;. The Cytb distance of the Siberut Island individual to other banded civet populations ranged from 4.7 to 5.5%, which is close to the divergence found between other small carnivore species (Veron et al 2007(Veron et al , 2015a(Veron et al , 2015c; our nuclear data also confirmed this strong divergence. Two subspecies have been described from the Mentawai Islands: Hemigalus derbyanus minor Miller, 1903 (South Pagai Island) andH.…”

“…Our results suggest that there have been independent connections between Borneo and Sumatran populations, and between Borneo and Peninsular Malaysian populations (in this study represented by an individual from Penang Island, which is very close and connected to the NW coast of Peninsular Malaysia). Although Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra have been connected frequently during glacial periods, the banded civet individuals from these two areas did not form a monophyletic group in our analyses, whereas a close relationship and low differentiation of populations from Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia have been found in many other mammals, such as rodents, macaques, palm civets and mongooses (Gorog et al 2004;Ziegler et al 2007;Patou et al 2010;Veron et al 2015a). Possible explanations for these findings would be independent dispersals during periods of lower sea levels (e.g., Last Glacial Maximum), or that banded civets were transported from one area to another, as has been suggested for some other civet species (Veron et al 2014(Veron et al , 2015c, although there is no evidence that this has ever occurred for the banded civet.…”

“…Banded civet individuals from Sumatra were not strongly divergent from those from Borneo, whereas a strong divergence between Sumatran and Borneo populations has been found in other forest species (Veron et al 2015a). Borneo has been isolated from Sumatra for ca 20 000 years, at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, and even when land connections existed between Borneo and the rest of the Sundaic region, open habitat might have restricted the movements of some forest animals (Meijaard 2003;Bird et al 2005;Cannon et al 2009).…”

“…We sequenced three mitochondrial fragments: Cytochrome b gene (Cytb), the control region (CR; hypervariable region 1) and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 (ND2), using the primers from Veron et al (2004Veron et al ( , 2014Veron et al ( , 2015a, Patou et al (2008Patou et al ( , 2009) and . We sequenced the nuclear marker intron 7 of Beta-fibrinogen (FGB) using the primers of Yu & Zhang (2005).…”

New insights into the systematics of Malagasy mongoose-like carnivorans (Carnivora, Eupleridae, Galidiinae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences

“…Considering the criteria for mammal species recognition, specifically the level of Cytb divergence (>5%, Baker & Bradley, ; >1.5%–2.5%, Tobe, Kitchener, & Linacre, ), on the basis of current data, it is best to consider these genera as monotypic. Moreover, while FGB has been proven to vary between species of mammals (e.g., Bezerra et al., ), and especially in Carnivora (e.g., Veron, Patou, Tóth, Goonatilake, & Jennings, ; Veron et al., 2015), it showed no or very little variation among Galidiinae genera.…”