Intraspecific epigenetic polymorphism of the East European vole (Microtus levis Miller, 1908) in South-eastern Europe and Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to represent the first report on population variation of 20 non-metric skull characters in East European vole (Microtus levis) from the Balkan (populations from Northern Dobruja; Southern Dobruja; East part of the Danube Plain; North-east Trace; Sofia field; South-east Trace) and Anatolian peninsulas (populations from North-west Anatolia region and Central Anatolia region), on the basis of which to determine its epigenetic variability and to analyse their mutual geographical epigenetic relations through comparison of the epigenetic divergence among them. Estimation of epigenetic variation of the studied populations of M. levis showed similar pattern of variation, but it is mostly higher than the other rodent species with a similar range of distribution, such as Microtus arvalis, Mus musculus, Apodemus sylvaticus, Apodemus flavicollis and Clethrionomys glareolus. Each one of the studied traits manifested some polymorphism. Moreover, all the calculated epigenetic distances (MMD) were statistically insignificant (P < 0.05) and epigenetic cranial uniqueness (MU) of any studied population was not found. These results reveal lack of expressed geographic relationship of population epigenetic variability in East European vole. The revealed populations epigenetic polymorphism of M. levis gives an opportunity for more complete assessment of variability and biological diversity of this species, but further research is necessary to elucidate its population epigenetics, especially as the data obtained in recent investigations of cranial morphology of the sibling species from the group the M. arvalis (sensu lato) added new locations to the distribution map of the East European vole in Eurasia.

Apport d’une étude transcriptomique et comportementale aux connaissances de l’impact des obstacles aquatiques sur les anguillettes migrantes

“…Dans ce cas, on pourrait parler d'un enrichissement du pool épigénétique de la population d'anguilles. L'épigénétique est une discipline récente et la notion de polymorphisme épigénétique demeure encore peu étudiée et ne fait que commencer à se faire une place à côté du concept de diversité génétique (Morange 2005 ;Neildez-Nguyen et al, 2008 ;Grativol et al, 2012 ;Markov et al, 2014 ;Avramidou et al, 2015). Dans le cas des anguilles, une étude expérimentale a déjà suggéré l'implication des mécanismes épigénétiques dans les normes de réaction observés (Côté et al, 2014).…”

COI gene analyses of the Daghestan pine vole (Microtus daghestanicus Shidlovsky, 1919) population from northeastern Turkey

“…Microtus Schrank, 1798 is one of the largest rodent genus and due to the unsolved taxonomic problems, high number of studies have been performed on this genus [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. Microtus daghestanicus Shidlovsky, 1919 whose type location is Daghestan is a species of pine vole (subgenus Terricola) recorded from Southwestern parts of European Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Northeastern Turkey, Azerbaijan and Northwestern Iran [8,9].…”