A new Eliomys from the Upper Miocene of Spain and its implications for the phylogeny of genus

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a previously unknown species of the glirid Burjassot, Spain; and Museu Valencià d'Història Natural, L'Hort de Feliu, P.O. Box 8460, Alginet, Valencia, 46018, Spain. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Complete mitogenomes reveal limited genetic variability in the garden dormouse Eliomys quercinus of the Iberian Peninsula

“…Iberia was an important boreal refugium for many species throughout Pleistocene climate fluctuations (Povoas et al, 1992;Kowalski, 2001;López Antoñanzas and Cuenca Bescós, 2002;Marks et al, 2002;Bicho et al, 2003;López-García et al, 2010;Horníková et al, 2021), but the population structure of the garden dormouse predates these environmental changes (Perez et al, 2013). A high level of morphological diversity is compatible with the fossil record that suggests that southern Spain is likely the center of origin for the species (Mansino et al, 2015), a hypothesis also supported by the molecular phylogeny (Perez et al, 2013). Our results, however, found limited genetic variability in the Iberian ESU in spite of its divergent position, which is in line with the now consolidated view that the genetically most diverse populations are not those located at the southernmost latitude but at intermediate latitudes, as a consequence of the admixture of divergent lineages arose in separate refugia (Petit et al, 2003;Werner, 2007).…”

“…However, the few genetic sequence based studies on the garden dormouse rely on a single mitochondrial DNA (mtD-NA) locus, cyt b, and genetic data available for Spain are very limited, with only two genotyped individuals from the Balearics (Perez et al, 2013) and the Pyrenees (Barbosa et al, 2013). This knowledge gap is remarkable, especially considering previous evidence for multiple refugia within the Iberian Peninsula (i.e., Portugal: Perez et al, 2013) and the likely origin of the species there (Perez et al, 2013, Mansino et al, 2015, suggesting that it is a key region to unravel the evolutionary history of the species.…”

Late Messinian mollusks and vertebrates from Moncucco Torinese, north-western Italy. Paleoecological and paleoclimatological implications

“…This taxon is intermediate in size between Eliomys intermedius and Eliomys truci and displays a dental pattern rather similar to that of the former species, with a posterior centroloph in the upper molars and a somewhat more rounded outline of the cheek teeth. This glirid is rarely found around the Mio-Pliocene boundary of the northern Mediterranean area (Mansino et al, 2015a). The rarest glirid at MCC is Glirulus lissiensis, whose occurrence is revealed only by four teeth with a complex pattern of five main and five (lower molars) or four (upper molars) accessory ridges.…”

Ancient DNA from an extinct Mediterranean micromammal—Hypnomys morpheus(Rodentia: Gliridae)—Provides insight into the biogeographic history of insular dormice

“…The first possible origin for Hypnomys , which is the most commonly accepted hypothesis (e.g., Agustí, ; Alcover et al, ; Bover et al, ; Colom, ; Mas et al, ; Moyà‐Solà & Pons‐Moyà, ), involves a split from a continental ancestor during the Late Tortonian/Early Messinian (Figure ) and its arrival into the Balearic Islands during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC, 5.97–5.33 Mya; Krijgsman, Hilgen, Raffi, Sierro, & Wilson, ; Manzi et al, ). According to Agustí () and Bover, Quintana, and Alcover (), the putative continental ancestor would be the fossil species Eliomys intermedius Priant, 1953 or E. truci Mein and Michaux, 1970 , both representatives of the lineage E. truci ‐ E. yevesi ‐ E. intermedius ‐ E. quercinus (Mansino, García‐Álix, Ruiz‐Sánchez, & Montoya, ). However, preliminary morphological analysis of the earliest known representative of the Hypnomys lineage (currently under analysis) obtained from the Early Pliocene Zanclean site of Na Burguesa‐1 (NB‐1) on Mallorca conflicts with this hypothesis.…”