Parallelism in Speciation and Intraspecific Diversification of the Plague Microbe <i>Yersinia pestis</i>

Abstract

Modern “molecular genetic (MG) phylogenies” of the plague microbe Yersinia pestis, built on models of neutral evolution using statistical methods of phylogenetic analysis, contradict numerous obvious environmental (ECO) patterns and are not consistent with the concept of adaptatiogenesis. The reason for the discrepancy between MG and ECO phylogenies is seen in the underestimation by the MG approach of parallelisms in the processes of speciation and intraspecific diversification of the plague microbe. ECO methods showed the parallel tritope (almost) simultaneous speciation of three primary genovariants (populations, subspecies) Y. pestis 2.ANT3, 3.ANT2 and 4.ANT1 in three geographical populations of the Mongolian marmot (Marmota sibirica), which in the MG approach is mistaken for polytomy (“Big Bang”), caused by unknown natural phenomena on the eve of the first pandemic (Justinian’s plague, 6th-8th centuries AD). The discrepancy between MG and ECO interpretations of the evolution of intraspecifically-derived phylogenetic sub-branches 0.PE and 2.MED is also associated with parallel evolutionary processes in independent lines, based on genovariants 2.ANT3, 3.ANT2 and 4.ANT1. Independence of these phylogenetic lines and associated with them parallelisms of sub-branches 0.PE and 2.MED are not taken into account in the MG approach. The prospect of creating a real phylogenetic tree for Y. pestis depends on a creative synthesis of the two approaches – MG and ECO.