Genetic diversity and phylogeography of Siberian roe deer, Caproulus pygargus, in central and peripheral populations.

Yun Sun Lee,Hang Lee,Mi‐Sook Min,Nickolay Markov,Kyung Seok Kim,Inna Voloshina,Alexander Argunov,Baek‐Jun Kim,Damdingiin Bayarlkhagva

doi:10.1002/ece3.2458

Abstract

Current understanding of phylogeographical structure and genetic diversity of Siberian roe deer remains limited mainly due to small sample size and/or low geographical coverage in previous studies. Published data suggest at least two phylogroups: western (Ural Mountains and Western Siberia) and eastern (east from lake Baikal, including the Korean peninsula), but their phylogenetic relationship remains unclear. Combined sequences of cytochrome b (1140 bp) and the mtDNA control region (963 bp) were analyzed from 219 Siberian roe deer from 12 locations in Russia, Mongolia, and South Korea, which cover a large part of its range, to assess genetic diversity and phylogeographical status. Special emphasis was placed on the demographic history and genetic features of central, peripheral, and isolated populations. Results of median‐joining network and phylogenetic tree analyses indicate that Siberian roe deer from the Urals to the Pacific Ocean are genetically diverse and that geographical distribution and composition of haplogroups coincide with previously described ranges of the subspecies Capreolus pygargus pygargus and Capreolus pygargus tianschanicus. We found that peripheral populations in the northwestern parts of the species range (Urals), as well as the isolated population from Jeju Island, are genetically distinct from those in the core part of the range, both in terms of genetic diversity and quantitative composition of haplogroups. We also found that northwestern (Urals) and northern (Yakutia) peripheral populations share the same haplogroup and fall into the same phylogenetic clade with the isolated population from Jeju Island. This finding sheds light on the taxonomic status of the Jeju Island population and leads to hypotheses about the discordance of morphological and genetic evolution in isolated populations and specific genetic features of peripheral populations.

Highlights

The roe deer (Capreolus, Gray 1821) is one of the most widespread artiodactyl genera
We address the question of taxonomic status of the Siberian roe deer on Jeju Island, based on data collected from across the species’ entire geographical range
Most Siberian roe deer populations in this study revealed similar levels of haplotype and nucleotide diversity, compared to those previously reported for Siberian roe deer (h = 0.93, π = 1.2%; Randi et al, 1998), (h = 0.872, π = 1.1%; Xiao et al, 2007)

Summary

| INTRODUCTION

The roe deer (Capreolus, Gray 1821) is one of the most widespread artiodactyl genera. The Siberian roe deer is widely distributed in continental Asia and parts of Eastern Europe, from the Khoper River and Don River bend to the Ural Mountains and across southern Siberia It is found through northern Mongolia and east to the coastlines of the East Sea, and the Yellow Sea, including the Korean Peninsula (Danilkin, 1999). Lorenzini, Garofalo, Qin, Voloshina, and Lovari (2014) suggested three haplogroups for Siberian roe deer are distributed throughout the entire range of this species, including Western Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Northeastern China, Central-eastern China, and Eastern Russia, but no geographical structuring of the species lineages was found. We report original data from the Urals, Western and Central Siberia, the Russian Far East and Korea, including both mainland Korea and the isolated population on Jeju Island, covering most part of the geographical range of Siberian roe deer.

| MATERIALS AND METHODS

| DISCUSSION

Findings

| CONCLUSION