Abstract
The distribution of Galictis cuja encompasses several countries of South America, including Brazil, where it inhabits the Atlantic Forest, part of Caatinga and part of Cerrado biomes. Herein we analyzed G. cuja specimens from localities in the Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Bahia, and the Distrito Federal, mainly roadkilled animals. The genetic diversity was estimated based on DNA sequence data of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b (mt-cyb). Analysis of mt-cyb identified high haplotypic diversity, albeit with low nucleotide diversity, suggesting that this population is in expansion and confirming the presence of gene flow. The karyotypes of two Galictis cuja specimens were described as 2n = 38 and FNa = 66. Our data showed that G. cuja is frequent in the investigated areas of Atlantic Forest biome, being a common roadkill mammal. Our data suggest that G. cuja may play a role as a spreader of zoonotic parasites.
Highlights
Galictis Bell, 1826 is a genus of the order Carnivora belonging to the family Mustelidae including two extant recognized species, the greater grison, Galictis vittata (Schreber, 1776) and the lesser grison, Galictis cuja (Molina, 1782)
GENETIC CONSIDERATION The karyotype of specimens from Rio de Janeiro state, with 2n = 38 and fundamental numbers (FNa) = 66, recorded in this study, is similar to the single chromosome complement already reported for one male Galictis cuja (2n = 38 and FN = 68) from Massaranduba in Santa Catarina state (Barbosa, 2013), both karyotypes showing a median sized biarmed X chromosome
Galictis cuja showed high haplotypic diversity (0.9021) and a low nucleotidic diversity suggesting that this population expanded after a period of small population size (Su et al, 2015)
Summary
Galictis Bell, 1826 is a genus of the order Carnivora belonging to the family Mustelidae including two extant recognized species, the greater grison, Galictis vittata (Schreber, 1776) and the lesser grison, Galictis cuja (Molina, 1782). Despite extensive studies of the chromosomal complement of species of the order Carnivora (Franco-de-Sá et al, 2007; Freitas et al, 1982; Kurose et al, 2000), there is a single karyotype description of Galictis cuja only published in a PhD thesis (Barbosa, 2013). This widespread genus has been observed to be infected by several etiological agents of zoonoses as: trypanosomiasis (Ferriolli & Barretto, 1969; Tremori, 2018), leishmaniasis (Melo, 2008), Toxoplasma gondii (Nicolle & Manceaux, 1908) (Torres-Castro et al, 2019), zoonotic giant kidney worm Dioctophyme renale (Goeze, 1782) (Barros et al, 1990; Zabott et al, 2012), nematodeosis (Vieira, F. et al, 2012), and a domestic dog strain of Canine Distemper virus (CDV, genus Morbilivirus), that can be transmitted by free-ranging dogs (Megid et al, 2013). The aims of this study are describing the karyotype of Galictis cuja from Southeastern Brazil, investigating the genetic diversity using the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b (mt-cyb) as a marker, and discuss its role as a spreader of zoonotic parasites
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