New phylogenetic perspectives on the Cervidae (Artiodactyla) are provided by the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene

Abstract

The entire mitochondrial cytochrome b (cyt b) gene was compared for 11 species of the artiodactyl family Cervidae, representing all living subfamilies, i.e. the antlered Cervinae (Cervus elaphus, C. nippon, Dama dama), Muntiacinae (Muntiacus reevesi), and Odocoileinae (Odocoileus hemionus, Mazama sp., Capreolus capreolus, C. pygargus, Rangifer tarandus, Alces alces); and the antlerless Hydropotinae (Hydropotes inermis). Phylogenetic analyses using Tragulidae, Antilocapridae, Gira¤dae and Bovidae as outgroups provide evidence for three multifurcating principal clades within the monophyletic family Cervidae. First, Cervinae and Muntiacus are joined in a moderately-to-strongly supported clade of Eurasian species. Second, Old World Odocoileinae (Capreolus and Hydropotes) associate with the Holarctic Alces. Third, New World Odocoileinae (Mazama and Odocoileus) cluster with the Holarctic Rangifer. The combination of mitochondrial cyt b and nuclear k-casein sequences increases the robustness of these three clades. The Odocoileini + Rangiferini clade is unambiguously supported by a unique derived cranial feature, the expansion of the vomer which divides the choana. Contrasting with current taxonomy, Hydropotes is not the sister group of all the antlered deers, but it is nested within the Odocoileinae. Therefore, Hydropotes lost the antlers secondarily. Thus, the mitochondrial cyt b phylogeny splits Cervidae according to plesiometacarpal (Cervinae + Muntiacinae) versus telemetacarpal (Odocoileinae + Hydropotinae) conditions, and suggests paraphyly of antlered deer.

The surprising evolutionary history of South American deer

“…4 including morphology (Merino et al, 2005), isozymes (Smith et al, 1986), cytogenetics (Duarte and Merino, 1997), and DNA sequences (Randi et al, 1998;Randi et al, 2001;Pitra et al, 2004;Gilbert et al, 2006), a great deal of confusion still remains with regards to their evolutionary history and taxonomy. These studies resulted in conflicting hypotheses about the phylogenetic relationships within the Neotropical cervids and hence, inducing uncertain evolutionary interpretations.…”

“…The small red brocket was later recognized based on the enormous karyotypical distance (2n = 32 to 34 in M. bororo vs. 2n = 50 to 53 in M. americana of the same geographic region; Duarte and Jorge, 2003 (Randi et al, 1998(Randi et al, , 2001Pitra et al, 2004;Gilbert et al, 2006). haplotype that was obtained from GenBank did not have a species designation.…”

“…For most of the tissues samples, the entire cytochrome b gene (1140 bp) was amplified using primers ML103 and MH104 (Randi et al, 1998). For some of the hair and blood samples that were too degraded for the amplification of the entire cytochrome b gene, we performed partial amplifications using L14724 and H15149 (480 bp) (Irwin et al, 1991), and a set of newly designed primers CYTB FAR-L 5'-CCATGAGGACAAATATCATTCTGAt-3' and CYTB FAR-H 5'-TCCAATAGTAATAAAGGGGTGTTCA-3' (660 bp).…”

Phylogeny and evolution of Cervidae based on complete mitochondrial genomes

“…Randi et al (1998) used cytochrome b (Cyb) for effective construction of the monophyly of Plesiometacarpalia. Hassanin and Douzery, (2003) have used multigene analysis for the major Plesiometacarpalia/Telemetacarpalia dichotomy, and Amato et al (2000) have used several mitochondrial genes or regions Cyb,12S and 16S ribosomal RNA [rRNA], ND4, and ND4L) to determine the monophyly of subfamily Muntiacinae, which provided strong support for the classification of Muntiacus and determined interspecific relationships.…”

Species Identification and Sex Determination of Korean Water Deer (Hydropotes inermis argyropus) by Duplex PCR

“…BLAST result of CYTB sequences showed 99.7% similarities with t h a t of complete sequence of GenBank Accession AJ000028 reported from Chinese water deer (Randi et al, 1998) BLAST search result showed that water deer SRY sequences were most similar to those from Moose (Alces alces) a n d Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) which showed about 96% homology with both, respectively. Similarity search result of SRY protein sequence of water deer showed 93.4, 92.5 and 91.3% similarities with those reported from Moose (A. alces cameloides, AY1489651, Reindeer (R. tarandus, AB247629) and Sika deer (Ceruus nippon, AB046700), respectively.…”