Abstract
Background. The bay cat Catopuma badia is endemic to Borneo, whereas its sister species the Asian golden cat Catopuma temminckii is distributed from the Himalayas and southern China through Indochina, Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra. Based on morphological data, up to five subspecies of the Asian golden cat have been recognized, but a taxonomic assessment, including molecular data and morphological characters, is still lacking. Results. We combined molecular data (whole mitochondrial genomes), morphological data (pelage) and species distribution projections (up to the Late Pleistocene) to infer how environmental changes may have influenced the distribution of these sister species over the past 120 000 years. The molecular analysis was based on sequenced mitogenomes of 3 bay cats and 40 Asian golden cats derived mainly from archival samples. Our molecular data suggested a time of split between the two species approximately 3.16 Ma and revealed very low nucleotide diversity within the Asian golden cat population, which supports recent expansion of the population. Discussion. The low nucleotide diversity suggested a population bottleneck in the Asian golden cat, possibly caused by the eruption of the Toba volcano in Northern Sumatra (approx. 74 kya), followed by a continuous population expansion in the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene. Species distribution projections, the reconstruction of the demographic history, a genetic isolation-by-distance pattern and a gradual variation of pelage pattern support the hypothesis of a post-Toba population expansion of the Asian golden cat from south China/Indochina to Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra. Our findings reject the current classification of five subspecies for the Asian golden cat, but instead support either a monotypic species or one comprising two subspecies: (i) the Sunda golden cat, distributed south of the Isthmus of Kra: C. t. temminckii and (ii) Indochinese, Indian, Himalayan and Chinese golden cats, occurring north of the Isthmus: C. t. moormensis.
Highlights
The bay cat Catopuma badia is endemic to Borneo, whereas its sister species the Asian golden cat Catopuma temminckii is distributed from the Himalayas and southern China through Indochina, Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra
In total 787 fixed mutations separated the bay cat and the Asian golden cat mitogenomes, and among the 3 bay cat and 40 Asian golden cat mitogenomes we found 33 and 224 variable positions, respectively
Phylogenetic analyses of mitogenomes, habitat distribution models and analysis of pelage colour data of the Asian golden cat and the bay cat presented here helped to elucidate the evolutionary history of these sister species
Summary
The bay cat Catopuma badia is endemic to Borneo, whereas its sister species the Asian golden cat Catopuma temminckii is distributed from the Himalayas and southern China through Indochina, Peninsular Malaysia and Sumatra. The Sunda Shelf which comprises Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Bali and other smaller islands is of great interest to evolutionary biologists [1], as alternating glacial and interglacial periods resulted in the emergence and submergence of land bridges between the larger landmasses [2,3,4] The impact of these transient land bridges on the distribution of genetic variation within and among species has received growing attention in the past years. Little or no genetic differentiation between island populations of a given species supports a scenario in which members of this species were free to move between islands during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) [5,6], while significant genetic divergence between mainland and Sundaic or among Sundaic populations of different islands supports a scenario of prolonged genetic isolation due to movement restriction The latter has been demonstrated among others for murine rodents [7], common palm civets Paradoxurus hermaphrodites [8], clouded leopards Neofelis spp. The bay cat is smaller than the Asian golden cat [14] and recent molecular studies showed that the two species probably split around 3.27 Ma [15]
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