Phylogenetic position of the Gansu mole Scapanulus oweni Thomas, 1912 and the relationships between strictly fossorial tribes of the family talpidae

The results of the first molecular study focused on the phylogenetic position of the Gansu mole, Scapanulus oweni are presented. The analysis based on sequences of the mitochondrial cytb gene and five nuclear genes supports the monophyly of the Scalopini tribe including S. oweni and shows that two highly fossorial talpid tribes, Talpini and Scalopini, are not immediate sister taxa. These results highlight the role of morphological parallelism as a potential source of conflict between molecular and morphology-based phylogenies in Talpidae.

Description of the mitogenome of Gansu mole (Scapanulus oweni)

The Gansu mole Scapanulus oweni belongs to family Talpidae, and is distributed in the Central and Southwest China. In this study, the total mitochondrial genome of S. oweni was firstly determined. The genome is 16,826 bases in length and contains 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes and a displacement loop region, with a base composition of A 34.0%, G 13.5%, T 28.7% and C 23.9%. All of the protein-coding genes initiate with the orthodox ATG start codon execpt for Nd2 and Nd3 begin with ATT, Nd4 and Nd5, start with GTG and ATA, respectively. Four types of stop codons are used by the coding genes, including TAA for Nd1, Cox1, Cox2, Atp8, Atp6, Nd4L, Nd5, Nd6, TAG for Nd2, AGA for Cytb, and an incomplete stop codon T for Cox3, Nd3 and Nd4. The mito-genomic data of Gansu mole, S. oweni will be useful in determining its taxonomic status within Talpidae.

Multilocus phylogeny of talpine moles (Talpini, Talpidae, Eulipotyphla) and its implications for systematics

The tribe Talpini is a group of strictly subterranean moles distributed across the Eurasian Continent whose phylogenetic relationships and taxonomy remain unresolved. Here we report a multi-locus nuclear-mitochondrial DNA dataset (9468 bp) from 11 talpine species encompassing all five recognized genera, together with analyses of their divergence times and evolutionary affinities inferred from maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches. Our results finely resolved all relationships except the root of the four recognized Asian genera, which was placed sister to the genus Talpa. With respect to the Asian clade, we moreover provide the first molecular support for a sister-taxon relationship between Parascaptor and Scaptochirus and confirm that the genus Euroscaptor is paraphyletic. Further, and despite a relatively small sample size (22 specimens), our species delimitation analyses support the existence of at least two genetically distinct, and hence potentially cryptic species. Taken together, these findings argue that generic status should be given to E. mizura and illustrate that the taxonomic diversity of the tribe Talpini in mountainous regions of southwestern China and Southeast Asia is underestimated. Finally, results of our divergence time analyses support a rapid radiation of the endemic Asian genera in the late-Miocene, which temporally corresponds with enhanced aridity and cooling arising from a significant uplift of the Himalayan-Tibetan plateau.