Cytotaxonomy of Gallinula melanops (Gruiformes, Rallidae): Karyotype evolution and phylogenetic inference.

Ivanete De Oliveira Furo,Ricardo José Gunski,Darren Karl Griffin,Jorge Claudio Da Costa Pereira,Analía Del Valle Garnero,Rafael Kretschmer,Edivaldo Herculano Corrêa De Oliveira,Patricia C M O’Brien,Malcolm A Ferguson-Smith,Rebecca E O’Connor

doi:10.1590/1678-4685-gmb-2020-0241

Abstract

Although Rallidae is the most diverse family within Gruiformes, there is little information concerning the karyotype of the species in this group. In fact, Gallinula melanops, a species of Rallidae found in Brazil, is among the few species studied cytogenetically, but only with conventional staining and repetitive DNA mapping, showing 2n=80. Thus, in order to understand the karyotypic evolution and phylogeny of this group, the present study aimed to analyze the karyotype of G. melanops by classical and molecular cytogenetics, comparing the results with other species of Gruiformes. The results show that G. melanops has the same chromosome rearrangements as described in Gallinula chloropus (Clade Fulica), including fission of ancestral chromosomes 4 and 5 of Gallus gallus (GGA), beyond the fusion between two of segments resultants of the GGA4/GGA5, also fusions between the chromosomes GGA6/GGA7. Thus, despite the fact that some authors have suggested the inclusion of G. melanops in genus Porphyriops, our molecular cytogenetic results confirm its place in the Gallinula genus.

Highlights

Gruiformes is an avian order showing great heterogeneity of habits, habitats and morphology and a wide geographic distribution (Del Hoyo et al, 1996; Garcia et al, 2014)
The results show that G. melanops has the same chromosome rearrangements as described in Gallinula chloropus (Clade Fulica), including fission of ancestral chromosomes 4 and 5 of Gallus gallus (GGA), beyond the fusion between two of segments resultants of the GGA4/GGA5, fusions between the chromosomes GGA6/GGA7
The main aim of this study was to characterize the karyotype of G. melanops by classic cytogenetics, GGA chromosome painting probes and Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH) with bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) selected from the genome library from microchromosomes of G. gallus in order to contribute to the phylogeny and karyotype evolution of the Rallidae family

Summary

Introduction

Gruiformes is an avian order showing great heterogeneity of habits, habitats and morphology and a wide geographic distribution (Del Hoyo et al, 1996; Garcia et al, 2014). Because of their great diversity, phylogenetic relationships among the different families in this order are still controversial, despite the number of phylogenetic studies performed so far. Within the core Gruiformes, Rallidae is the family with the highest number of species, around 152, distributed in 33 to 40 genera, comprising 85% of the order diversity (Garcia et al, 2014; Gill et al, 2020). The phylogenetic relationships within Rallidae still present many inconsistencies, due mainly to the small numbers of species that have been sampled in the different approaches (Garcia et al, 2014)

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