TY - JOUR
T1 - Molecular phylogenetics of an endangered species
T2 - The Tamaulipan woodrat (Neotoma angustapalata)
AU - Rogers, Duke S.
AU - Leite, Rafael N.
AU - Reed, Rustin J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments The Department of Biology, M. L. Bean Life Science Museum and the Office of Research and Creative Activities at Brigham Young University provided funding for this project. We especially thank Robert M. Timm for generously providing us with skin samples from topotypes of Neotoma angustapalata housed in the University of Kansas Natural History Museum. Mark Bailey, Gregory Crewdson and Melina Williamson assisted in the lab and Fernanda Werneck provided help with the map. Robert Anderson, Ivan Castro Arellano, Brittany Bush and Marcy Revelez kindly examined specimens in natural history collections. Nicole Lewis-Rogers assisted with data analyses and provided valuable input as did several anonymous reviewers.
PY - 2011/8
Y1 - 2011/8
N2 - Neotoma angustapalata (Tamaulipan woodrat) is a large cricetid rodent found only in southwestern Tamaulipas and northeastern San Luis Potosí, Mexico. This species currently is listed as endangered due to habitat alteration, its restricted distribution, and relative rarity. Previous taxonomic assessments have allied N. angustapalata with N. albigula (now encompassing N. leucodon), N. mexicana or N. micropus. We sequenced portions of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene from two skin samples of the Tamaulipan woodrat, including one of two topotypes. We estimated genealogical relationships between N. angustapalata and other species of Neotoma using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. In general, our results confirm the phylogeny of woodrats as proposed previously but we also recovered major genetic differentiation within what currently is recognized as N. mexicana and N. albigula. Our data document that the Tamaulipan woodrat is genetically indistinguishable from geographically adjacent haplotypes of N. leucodon. However, mitochondrial introgression from N. leucodon cannot be ruled out inasmuch as we were not able to obtain nuclear sequence data for N. angustapalata. Morphological analyses document that both male and female Tamaulipan woodrats differ morphologically from N. leucodon. Given that the Tamaulipan woodrat is diagnosable morphologically and occurs in habitat that differs from N. leucodon, we recognize N. angustapalata as a species-level entity.
AB - Neotoma angustapalata (Tamaulipan woodrat) is a large cricetid rodent found only in southwestern Tamaulipas and northeastern San Luis Potosí, Mexico. This species currently is listed as endangered due to habitat alteration, its restricted distribution, and relative rarity. Previous taxonomic assessments have allied N. angustapalata with N. albigula (now encompassing N. leucodon), N. mexicana or N. micropus. We sequenced portions of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene from two skin samples of the Tamaulipan woodrat, including one of two topotypes. We estimated genealogical relationships between N. angustapalata and other species of Neotoma using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference. In general, our results confirm the phylogeny of woodrats as proposed previously but we also recovered major genetic differentiation within what currently is recognized as N. mexicana and N. albigula. Our data document that the Tamaulipan woodrat is genetically indistinguishable from geographically adjacent haplotypes of N. leucodon. However, mitochondrial introgression from N. leucodon cannot be ruled out inasmuch as we were not able to obtain nuclear sequence data for N. angustapalata. Morphological analyses document that both male and female Tamaulipan woodrats differ morphologically from N. leucodon. Given that the Tamaulipan woodrat is diagnosable morphologically and occurs in habitat that differs from N. leucodon, we recognize N. angustapalata as a species-level entity.
KW - Cytochrome b
KW - Endangered species
KW - General lineage concept
KW - Molecular systematics
KW - N. leucodon
KW - Neotoma angustapalata
KW - Principal components analysis
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U2 - 10.1007/s10592-011-0207-z
DO - 10.1007/s10592-011-0207-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79960599783
SN - 1566-0621
VL - 12
SP - 1035
EP - 1048
JO - Conservation Genetics
JF - Conservation Genetics
IS - 4
ER -