Mitogenome and phylogenetic analyses support rapid diversification among species groups of small-eared shrews genus <i>Cryptotis</i> (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae)

Abstract

The small-eared shrew genus Cryptotis is the third largest in the family Soricidae and occurs in North, Central, and northern South America. In Mexico and Central and South America, most species inhabit geographically isolated moist, montane habitats at middle and high elevations in a typical sky-island pattern. The 49 recognized species have been partitioned into as many as six species groups based on morphological and molecular phylogenetic studies. The relationships among these species groups are poorly resolved, and their evolutionary histories, including migration patterns and locomotor adaptations, remain unclear. Herein, we provide a new phylogeny incorporating complete mitochondrial genomes (mitogenomes) and supermatrix approach. We compared different evolutionary scenarios using approximately unbiased (AU), Kishino-Hasegawa (KH), and Shimodaira-Hasegawa (SH) statistical tests. The phylogenetic hypothesis based on mitogenomes revealed novel relationships supporting a basal position for the Cryptotis parvus -group in the genus, and a close relationship between C. gracilis and one clade of the C. thomasi -group. The former relationship is consistent with the least derived humerus morphology and northern distribution of the species. The latter relationship implies multiple migrations between Central and South America. The lack of fine resolution for the species group relationships may be due partly to the lack of taxon sampling. In contrast, multi-approach analyses suggest that the unresolved relationships may be a result of rapid diversification during the early stages of Cryptotis evolution.

Complete Mitogenomes of Ticks Ixodes acutitarsus and Ixodes ovatus Parasitizing Giant Panda: Deep Insights into the Comparative Mitogenomic and Phylogenetic Relationship of Ixodidae Species

“…Unstable and uncertain phylogenetic relationships may affect our understanding of diversity and evolutionary history [ 25 ]. Molecular identification of existing and new species can be assisted by gene fragments (e.g., rrnL and COX1 ) [ 20 , 106 ], but complete mitogenomes may provide more accurate signals than gene fragments for phylogenetic reconstruction [ 23 , 33 , 61 , 73 ]. In this study, the phylogenetic analyses were conducted based on 13 PCGs and 2 rRNAs, which were concatenated into a sequence matrix of 12,892 bp representing 87% of the entire mitogenome alignments.…”

“…Many tick species share great morphological similarities and therefore group into species complexes until differentiating characters can be described [ 22 ]. The mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) is a reliable marker for cryptic species identification, phylogenetic studies, and population genetics analysis, and has been widely used in animals [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 ], including in ticks [ 7 , 21 , 29 ]. In recent years, the number of sequenced mitogenomes of Ixodidae species has increased significantly, but the mitogenome studies on parasitic ticks of giant pandas have only been performed for three Haemaphysalis species [ 30 , 31 , 32 ].…”

A new species of small-eared shrew (Soricidae, Cryptotis) from El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve, Chiapas, Mexico

“…In this study, morphological data and the potential distribution over time were used to discover lineages and infer their evolutionary tendency and historical fate. In addition, I drew on genetic information published in previous studies (Guevara and Cervantes 2014;He et al 2015He et al , 2021Baird et al 2018).…”

“…Cervantes 2014;Baird et al 2018;He et al 2021), it is reasonable to suggest that the population from El Triunfo has a unique evolutionary trajectory, which I describe as a new species. Additionally, I identify the specimen (CZRMA 2019) from eastern Chiapas as C. goodwini, which currently represents the only known specimen of the species for Mexico.…”

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

“…The characterization of mitochondrial genomes can also be useful to look at relationships between lineages within species (McGowen et al, 2009;Morin et al, 2010;Fabre et al, 2017;He et al, 2021), where single mitochondrial genes do not have sufficient power to resolve them (Galewski et al, 2005;Zardoya and Meyer, 1996;Sasaki et al, 2005;Viricel and Rosel, 2011;He et al, 2015). This is even more important when recent and rapid speciation events are not paralleled by the accumulation of morphological disparity, as happened with the genus Rattus (Rowe et al, 2011).…”