Cytotaxonomic analysis of species of the genera Mus, Apodemus and Rattus in Azerbaijan

Phylogeny of the genus Apodemus with a special emphasis on the subgenus Sylvaemus using the nuclear IRBP gene and two mitochondrial markers: cytochrome b and 12S rRNA

Phylogenetic relationships among 17 extant species of Murinae, with special reference to the genus Apodemus, were investigated using sequence data from the nuclear protein-coding gene IRBP (15 species) and the two mitochondrial genes cytochrome b and 12S rRNA (17 species). The analysis of the three genes does not resolve the relationships between Mus, Apodemus, and Rattus but separates Micromys from these three genera. The analysis of the two mitochondrial regions supported an association between Apodemus and Tokudaia and indicated that these two genera are more closely related to Mus than to Rattus or Micromys. Within Apodemus, the mitochondrial data sets indicated that 8 of the 9 species analyzed can be sorted into two main groups: an Apodemus group, with A. agrarius, semotus, and peninsulae, and a Sylvaemus group, with uralensis, flavicollis, alpicola, sylvaticus, and hermonensis. The position of Apodemus mystacinus is ambiguous and might be either included in Sylvaemus or considered a distinct subgenus, Karstomys, more closely related to Sylvaemus than to Apodemus. Estimation of the divergence time for these taxa suggests a separation between 7 and 8 My ago for the three groups (mystacinus and the two subgenera Apodemus and Sylvaemus). Within each subgenus, divergence times are between 5.4 and 6 My for Apodemus and between 2.2 and 3.5 My for Sylvaemus and mystacinus.

Mitochondrial DNA and chromosomal studies of wild mice (Mus) from Turkey and Iran

Complete D-loop sequences of 20 Mus from three localities in Turkey and seven in Iran were characterized. These countries are thought to be close to the place of origin of the subspecies Mus musculus domesticus. Five new M. m. domesticus haplotypes were added to the nine already known for the region. Four of these 14 haplotypes were very similar to the consensus D-loop sequence for western Europe defined by Nachman et al. (1994), which may represent the ancestral condition for M. m. domesticus. A divergent mtDNA lineage is found in various parts of Turkey and northern Iran; it has spread into western Europe, but other European lineages were not found in either Turkey or Iran. The other Mus D-loop sequences were of M. m. castaneus and Mus macedonicus and confirmed M. macedonicus as a monotypic species with low nucleotide diversity. The prevalence of the standard 40-chromosome complement in this region is particularly interesting with regards M. m. domesticus, as it is consistent with the in situ origin of Robertsonian karyotypic races (2n < 40) in western Europe.