Abstract
BackgroundPhylogeographical patterns and population dynamics are usually interpreted by environmental disturbances and geographic barriers of the past. However, sister species may exhibit disparate patterns of genetic structures and population dynamics due to their habitat preference and altitude segregation. In this study, we tested how species-specific altitude habitat affected phylogeographical patterns in two sister snowcock species, Tibetan (Tetraogallus tibetanus) and Himalayan Snowcocks (T. himalayensis).MethodsA panel of seven microsatellite loci and a fragment of Mitochondrial DNA Control Region were used to investigate genetic structures and population dynamics in hope of revealing the underlying evolutionary processes through the identification of possible past demographic events.ResultsOur results suggest that T. himalayensis showed a significant phylogeographical signal in mtDNA (FST = 0.66, p < 0.001) and microsatellite (FST = 0.11, p < 0.001) data and is stable during the glacial-interglacial cycles in the Pleistocene and followed demographic contraction until 0.003 million years (Mys) ago. The phylogeographical signal of T. tibetanus is lower than the level of genetic difference among populations in mtDNA (FST = 0.41, p < 0.001) and microsatellite (FST = 0.09, p < 0.001) data, likely benefiting from stable habitats over a long period of time. T. tibetanus has been experiencing expansion since 0.09 Mys ago. However, an abnormally haplotype H9 from T. himalayensis clustering with T. tibetanus was spotted.ConclusionOur results indicate that differences in habitat preference and altitude specialities were reflected in the genetic structure patterns and population dynamics of these two species. These dissimilarities in life history traits might have affected the dispersal and survival abilities of these two species differently during environmental fluctuations. The results of this study also enriched our knowledge on population differentiation and connectivity in high altitude mountain ecosystems.
Highlights
Phylogeographical patterns and population dynamics are usually interpreted by environmental disturbances and geographic barriers of the past
According to T. tibetanus geographical origin, the samples were divided into five regional groups: QLS (Qilian Mountain region), QDM (Qiadam Basin region), BKL (Baryan Har Mountains region), TGL (Tanggula Mountains region) and WKL and according to T. himalayensis geographical origin, the samples were divided into six regional groups: HETS, HWTS, HWKL, HQDM (Qiadam Basin region), HQLS (Qilian Mountain region), HPME (Pamir Plateau) (Fig. 1 and Additional file 1: Table S2)
Microsatellites were polymorphic in all populations of T. tibetanus and T. himalayensis
Summary
Phylogeographical patterns and population dynamics are usually interpreted by environmental disturbances and geographic barriers of the past. Sister species may exhibit disparate patterns of genetic structures and population dynamics due to their habitat preference and altitude segregation. We tested how species-specific altitude habitat affected phylogeographical patterns in two sister snowcock species, Tibetan (Tetraogallus tibetanus) and Himalayan Snowcocks (T. himalayensis). Sister species, which shared recent ancestry, An et al Avian Res (2020) 11:1 may show different patterns of population genetic structure due to biological, ecological, behavioural, or environmental factors (Bermingham and Moritz 1998). Comparative analysis of the population genetic structures of sister species may provide the chance to disclose factors impacting evolutionary processes. The investigation on origin and evolutionary history of Tibetan endemic bird species has long been limited to the central plateau region, southern and eastern fringes (Prum et al 2015). Previous research found that differences among species in body size, shape as well as in foraging and feeding strategies had been involved in the initiative stages of SE Asian passerine radiations long before ancestors of extant species occupied their altitudinal niches in response to Sino-Himalayan vegetation belts (Kennedy and Price 2012; Price et al 2014)
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