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Abstract
Recent molecular studies have indicated that phylogeographical history of Japanese biota is likely shaped by geohistory along with biological events, such as distribution shifts, isolation, and divergence of populations. However, the genetic structure and phylogeographical history of terrestrial Annelida species, including leech species, are poorly understood. Therefore, we aimed to understand the genetic structure and phylogeographical history across the natural range of Haemadipsa japonica, a sanguivorous land leech species endemic to Japan, by using nine polymorphic nuclear microsatellites (nSSR) and cytochrome oxidase subunit one (COI) sequences of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Analyses using nSSR revealed that H. japonica exhibited a stronger regional genetic differentiation among populations (G'ST = 0.77) than other animal species, probably because of the low mobility of land leech. Analyses using mtDNA indicated that H. japonica exhibited two distinct lineages (A and B), which were estimated to have diverged in the middle Pleistocene and probably because of range fragmentation resulting from climatic change and glacial and interglacial cycles. Lineage A was widely distributed across Japan, and lineage B was found in southwestern Japan. Analyses using nSSR revealed that lineage A was roughly divided into two population groups (i.e., northeastern and southwestern Japan); these analyses also revealed a gradual decrease in genetic diversity with increasing latitude in lineage A and a strong genetic drift in populations of northeastern Japan. Combined with the largely unresolved shallow polytomies from the mtDNA phylogeny, these results implied that lineage A may have undergone a rapid northward migration, probably during the Holocene. Then, the regional genetic structure with local unique gene pools may have been formed within each lineage because of the low mobility of this leech species.
Highlights
The Japanese archipelago comprises four main islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu; Figure 1) and is located off the far eastern coast of the Asian continent
Similar mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogenetic relationships with unresolved shallow polytomies were found in studies on the roe deer species (Capreolus spp.) in the Eurasian continent (Lorenzini, Garofalo, Qin, Voloshina, & Lovari, 2014); in contrast to the well‐resolved intraspecific phylogeny resulting from a network analysis, largely unresolved shallow polytomies were found for Capreolus capreolus occurring in Europe, besides a high divergence from C. pygargus occurring across the Eurasian continent
Haemadipsa japonica was found to include two mtDNA lineages (A and B), which diverged in the middle Pleistocene
Summary
The Japanese archipelago comprises four main islands (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu; Figure 1) and is located off the far eastern coast of the Asian continent. Glacial and interglacial cycles have been considered to affect genetic structures, mainly through the expansion and contraction of organismal distributions and through migrations from the Asian continent across land bridges during the Quaternary (Millien‐Parra & Jaeger, 1999; Motokawa, 2017; Qiu, Fu, & Comes, 2011) In this context, the geohistory of Japan, along with biological events such as distribution shifts, isolation, and divergence of populations, is probably engraved within organismal genomes. The use of nuclear microsatellites (nSSR) in combination with mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences for studies on leech species provides an opportunity to track the phylogeographical history, as previously reported for other animal species (e.g., Konishi, Hata, Matsuda, Arai, & Mizoguchi, 2017; López‐Uribe, Cane, Minckley, & Danforth, 2016; Michaelides et al, 2015; Rutkowski et al, 2015; Shoda‐Kagaya et al, 2010). Lat., Long., and Alt. indicate latitude, longitude, and altitude of the sampling location, respectively; N indicates numbers of samples analyzed for nSSR and mtDNA; numbers in parentheses indicate breakdown of pooled samples; we pooled these locations as single population because two locations were in the same mountain and/or along the same river system and because sample size of these locations was small
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